


The Fallout Always Falls On Us

by johnny cade (johnnycake)



Series: Switchblades and Leather [26]
Category: The Outsiders (1983), The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Addiction, Death, Disordered Eating, Drugging, Drugs, Hallucinations, M/M, PTSD, Past Rape Mention, Suicidal Ideation, panic disorder, request
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2019-05-30 07:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 32,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15091535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnnycake/pseuds/johnny%20cade
Summary: Ponyboy was killed by the Socs that night and Johnny never really got over it (au in this universe)





	1. Deep Memories in Deep Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny wakes up from a nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was actually a request i got so i rly hope the person who requested it likes it!! i am so sorry it took me so long to get to it ;-; i'm also sorry this is so short, but i didn't felt it needed to be any longer. i hope you like it!!! :D <3

_The world was dark, so dark that Johnny could see all the stars. At least, that was what it felt like as he sat on top of the jungle gym in the park. He blew the smoke of the cigarette butt he’d found on the ground at the sky, watching as it looked like its own layer of smoke, obscuring the stars. There was no moon that night either, nothing to obscure the stars. It was like magic._

_He handed the cigarette to Ponyboy, who was sitting next to him on the jungle gym. Pony had gotten in a fight with Darry. He still seemed shaken up about it, but the cigarette seemed to be helping and he let Ponyboy finish it. Both of them were out, though. They’d have to go get more tomorrow morning once the drug stores opened._

_But that would never happen._

_Johnny would never be sure where they came from, but headlights swung around the park and the boys turned to see a blue Mustang pulling up onto the grass. Johnny knew who it was even before it stopped and the Socs stepped out of the car. And he knew they were looking for trouble even before he saw the gun the one with the rings was carrying._

_But he never had a chance._

_Even though he opened his mouth the moment he saw the gun, even though he started to scream Pony’s name as the Soc raised the gun, aiming it right between Ponyboy’s eyes. He started to scream even before the Soc squeezed the trigger and when the gun went off the world went white around the edges for a few minutes._

_When everything stopped ringing and Johnny could see again, he was still sitting on top of the jungle gym and the Socs were gone. The night was silent again. But Ponyboy was gone too and when he turned to look for him he saw him. On the ground. With a red bullet hole between his still-open eyes. That was when he began to scream in earnest._

* * *

Johnny started awake in bed, the scream still on his lips before he remembered he was no longer in the park. And it was no longer June. And screaming wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t help anything either. Not anymore. Ponyboy was long gone.

His face crumpled and he covered it with his hands, trying to muffle his sobs as he lay, shirtless, in the bed he now shared with Dallas, trying to keep him from waking him as he sobbed silently to himself in bed, trying to forget, being forced to remember.

His screaming had woken the neighborhood after that. Everyone had come running all at once. He remembered seeing the looks on the faces of the gang. He remembered the guilt that had started to worm its way into him, telling him he should’ve shouted sooner, the minute he saw the car, rather than waiting for them to get out. He remembered seeing Darry and Sodapop, looking broken. He remembered after he stopped screaming he didn’t speak for a month. He remembered how sometimes he still lost his voice and he couldn’t find it. Not until Dallas took his shaking hands in his own, kissed the tips and told him to come back.

He remembered the pool of blood that had stained the grass in the park for weeks afterwards. No one went there anymore. It was always empty. The Socs who had done it were never caught or punished even though everyone knew who it was. Even though Johnny told them through Dallas before he could find his voice again.

But that wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t enough proof. And no one else had been there besides him. And...besides...who cared about one more dead greaser anyway?

Ponyboy’s funeral was held three days later. Johnny remembered going, but only vaguely, as if he’d been drifting through the event, wearing a suit Darry had lent him, seeing everything, but not really taking any of it in. He spoke to no one. He just watched the world go by. He heard the words “I’m so sorry” so many times he wanted to go into the bathroom and slit his wrists. What were they sorry for? He was the one that was at fault. He was the one that should be sorry.

And he was. Even now all these months later as he cried in the darkness of the bedroom he shared with Dallas – part of the apartment they now shared – he felt more sorry than he ever had in his life. Because he knew that no matter what anyone said or did or believed or told him, it would always be his fault for not acting.

“Johnny?”

The voice was soft and so unexpected Johnny started, letting out a frightened gasp.

“Johnny, it’s just me.” He felt warm hands on his and realized it was just Dallas. He had propped himself up on his arms, while on his stomach and, though Johnny couldn’t make out the details of his face in the darkness as he took his hands and began to rub them, trying to calm their shaking, he could almost imagine the face Dally had right now anyway: eyes squinted from sleep, hair tousled and sticking every which way, and a lazy smile on his face, the sweetest one Johnny ever saw, the one that was his favorite.

“It’s my fault, Dallas,” he said into the darkness, staring up at the ceiling he couldn’t see through the black around them. “I saw the car and I didn’t say nothin’ till the Socs got out. And...by then...it was too late.”

Dally didn’t say anything in response. This conversation was one they’d had many times, but it always came up again. By this point, Johnny didn’t even need to explain what he was talking about anymore. Dally just knew.

“It _ain’t_ your fault,” Dally replied, his voice firm and a little louder than he might have meant to say it. “The only people at fault here are those Socs and they only got off cause their daddy’s got deep pockets and the judges are crooked. This ain’t your fault. When are you gonna believe me?”

Johnny didn’t say anything. He wasn’t really sure what to say. What _could_ he say? That he was sorry? How many times could he say sorry before it started losing its meaning? Finally, he said, his voice still soft, “When he comes back.”

“That ain’t gonna happen, Johnnycake,” Dally replied, pressing his lips to Johnny’s fingertips. They were still shaking badly.

“I know,” Johnny replied.

Dallas said nothing. He knew at this point there wasn’t anything he could say.

Because nothing was helping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i start a lot of stuff with dreams, but it’s the best way to write stuff like this so rip. AAAA I HOPE THE PERSON WHO REQUESTED THIS LIKES IT. i'm happy with it, but i'm always nervous when i write things for others.


	2. The Drive-In Goes Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny sees the Socs that killed Ponyboy when at the drive-in with the rest of the gang.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another request for this fic in specific!! :D i really hope the person that requested it likes this!!

The drive in was on the outskirts of what was considered the main part of town. It wasn’t very far from Buck Merrill’s place, which was considered to be the very edge of town. However, every time Johnny walked there, whether alone or with someone else, he felt like he was leaving down for good. Even though there were always cars on the road to the drive in, even though the drive in itself was always packed with people, he still felt like he was going away.

A part of him had actually started to want to since Ponyboy had been killed.

Today he was going with Dallas, Steve, and Two-Bit. Soda and Darry had thrown themselves into work since Ponyboy was killed and no one saw much of them anymore. They still hung out together and they still had fun together, but it wasn’t like before. Steve kept insisting they just needed time and things would sort themselves out, but Johnny wasn’t so sure.

It’d been four months since Ponyboy had been killed. It was almost the end of summer. And it felt like the only progress they’d made was they’d stopped talking about Ponyboy. Johnny wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than talking about him all the time, which was what it had been originally.

He decided he liked the silence better.

When they talked about it, Johnny had to remember it was his fault.

The movie being shown at the drive in today was another beach movie and that alone had Johnny’s heart racing. The night Ponyboy had died they’d been watching one of those movies. Dallas had been there too and he didn’t notice the way Dally kept looking at him out of the corner of his eye, watching for the telltale signs of an impending freak out.

Johnny wasn’t sure which was worse: freaking out in public or having freaked out so many times in the past few months that Dallas knew what to look for to take him away from the public before he had a full blown meltdown.

The gang chose their usual seats: the ones near the concession stand for people without cars. Johnny squeezed his eyes shut as they walked past the seats he, Ponyboy, and Dallas had sat in the last time they were here. He tried not to look at the seats Cherry and Marcia had sat in too. When he glanced at Two-Bit, he watched him take a long swig of beer as they passed the seats, his eyes purposefully averted as well.

They sat at the back of the rows of seats instead. Two-Bit and Steve shared the beer and Dallas went to go get them some popcorn and Coke, while Johnny stared at the huge screen in front of him without really seeing it.

It was hard to believe it had already been four months since Ponyboy died. It was hard to believe the last time he’d even been to the drive in had been four months ago. It felt like so much and yet, at the same time, so much less time had passed than it actually had. He hadn’t been to Ponyboy’s grave. He didn’t think he could do it. He’d probably take out his switchblade and slit his wrists right then and there.

The thought made him look away from the screen and swallowed hard, staring at his lap.

He still couldn’t face what he had done.

Then he heard a voice. It was faint and coming from the parking lot rather than the area near the concession stands, but it was more than enough to be recognizable. He looked up, his head swiveling around as he tried to find the source of the voice. He told himself it was to prove to himself he was hearing things, but when his eyes landed on the source of the voice, the source he had known that it was all along, he wondered why he had thought finding it would help anything.

It was the Soc. The one with the blue Mustang. The one with the rings. The one had beat him half to death three separate times with the help from his friends before doing far worse things to him after. He was also the one who had stepped out of his car and shot Ponyboy between the eyes without a word or a second thought.

It was his heart rate that always started going first, along with the ice that dropped into the pit of his stomach. It felt like someone had shoved a block of the stuff into him and was now letting it melt, letting it freeze his veins and ice his heart and turn him so cold he started shaking all over.

He blinked and images flashed through his mind.

_Ponyboy on the jungle gym. Ponyboy dead on the ground, blood all around him._

_The vacant lot late at night. Himself being held to the ground as he was assaulted over and over again by the Socs whose names he still didn’t know._

_Darry’s and Sodapop’s faces at the funeral._

_The world spinning around him as the Socs hit him over and over and over again._

_The pain between his legs as the Socs hurt him over and over again too._

“Johnny?”

He heard the voice as if from far away. He didn’t realize his eyes were shut tight. He didn’t realize that he was grimacing with his hands over his ears. He opened his eyes when he heard the voice and turned in the direction it came from and saw Steve and Two-Bit looking at him anxiously. Johnny knew what that look was. They were afraid of what was going to happen next.

He grimaced and let out a whimpering moan before he got up from his seat and ran as fast as he could away from everything. He didn’t even really know where he was going, just that he needed to run until he couldn’t anymore. And then he would collapse and cry and start all over again.

* * *

Dallas was paying for the popcorns and Cokes when he saw Johnny take off. He threw the money at the cashier and dashed outside, handing the food and drinks to Steve and Two-Bit as he asked, “What happened? Where did he go?”

“He saw the Soc,” Steve said. He wasn’t looking at Dally as he said it and Dally didn’t need an explanation. There was only one Soc that would make Johnny feel that way.

“What happened after that?” Dally asked.

“I said his name,” Steve replied, looking up at him now. “And then he looked at us and ran off.”

Dally thought for a moment. That didn’t sound like him. Johnny didn’t typically run off like that. He had to be really upset to do something like that. Then something else occurred to Dallas and he asked, “How’d you look at him?”

Steve drew his brows together. “What d’you mean?”

“Just that. How’d you look at him?” Dally said again.

“Just...worried, I guess, I dunno, man,” Steve replied, but Dally was already biting his lip and trying not to yell in frustration at Steve.

“You can’t do that, man,” he said, looking in the direction Johnny had run. “You can’t treat him like he’s nuts cause he ain’t. He’s just scared.”

But Dally knew even as he said it, even as he started towards the back of the lot where he could see Johnny now, pacing back and forth, he knew that it wasn’t him _just_ being scared. It was a whole lot more than that. Johnny had been hurt in the worst ways by everyone around him – except for the gang – his entire life. He’d watched his best friend get murdered right in front of him. He’d had the Socs beat him almost to death three different times. It sounded like enough to make anyone on edge, but it was killing Johnny. It was breaking him down slowly and Dallas could see that as clear as day and it terrified him. What happened if Johnny broke down completely? What happened if they couldn’t stop it or save him from it? Dally didn’t know if he could take that.

As he got closer, he watched Johnny go over to a light that wasn’t on and lean one hand against it. The other was wrapped around his stomach and Dally winced as he watched him vomit onto the ground several times until he was just dry heaving. Then he leaned against the pole of the light and slid to the ground, his hands shaking in front of him, his face a grimace of fear.

Dally ran the last few yards to him, sinking down in front of him and taking his hands, kissing the tips of his fingers as he said over and over again, “Johnny, come back to me. It’s alright. You’re safe. Come back to me. You’re not there anymore. You’re here. Come back.”

For several moments, nothing happened. Dally held Johnny’s hands and kissed them and he continued to whimper and cry, his hands shaking as violently as ever. Then his eyes shifted and he seemed to see Dallas for the first time and then he broke down crying. It broke Dally to know that that was how he knew what he’d done had worked: Johnny had come out of his memories, but the realization of where he’d been was so much he could only communicate through tears.

Dallas wrapped Johnny in his arms, holding him against him, trying to tell him over and over again that it was okay, everything was going to be okay, even though it felt like a lie, even though nothing had been okay in a very long time. In this one moment, he wanted things to be alright and he didn’t let go of Johnny until his body stopped shaking and his sobs were hiccups against his chest.

* * *

Two-Bit and Steve found them not long after and suggested they just go home. Dally asked Johnny if that was what he wanted to do and Johnny didn’t say anything, so Two-Bit decided they needed to go back if he couldn’t even speak right now. This happened sometimes. They all knew that. But it still scared them every time Johnny stopped speaking. All of them silently wondered, though they never said it to each other, if Johnny would ever speak again.

None of them wanted to go to the Curtis house. It just didn’t sound like a good idea after what had happened, so they went to Steve’s place instead. His old man had the same job that Dally’s did: they were both truckers and, while Steve and his old man got along, he still didn’t like him bringing his friends over unannounced when he was home. Currently, he was out on a job and Steve had the house to himself. His house was one of the nicer ones, which still surprised all of them.

“I’m gonna put Johnny to bed,” Dally told them as he led Johnny, still silent, through the house to the bedrooms. There were two and he chose the one that belonged to Steve’s dad.

He sat Johnny on the bed and helped him out of his clothes, telling him each time he was going to take off one of them. Johnny didn’t look at him. He just stared blankly at the ground and nodded at Dally’s questions. Steve came in a short while later and gave Johnny an overlarge t-shirt to sleep in, while Dally pulled back the blankets for him. Johnny crawled into bed and Dally tucked him in, even though he said nothing, even though he continued staring at nothing too. Dally kissed his forehead, brushing his hair slightly back from his face as he said, “I’ll be in the next room, okay? I love you.”

Johnny only nodded again and Dally left, following Steve back into the living room.

Two-Bit had turned on the TV and they were all watching some late night horror movie that none of them recognized, but still somehow felt vaguely familiar. Steve broke out the beer and they all drank until their bodies were warm and their heads were fuzzy and they could forget about what had happened that night...and all the nights for the past four months.

Dally wasn’t sure what time it was and he wasn’t sure what prompted him to say it, but at one point, he pulled his beer bottle away from his lips, swallowed what was in his mouth and said, “We need to get him help or somethin’.”

Two-Bit looked at him. Steve only nodded.

“What kinda help?” Two-Bit asked.

“I dunno,” Dally admitted. “But he’s fallin’ apart. I dunno what’s gonna happen to him if we don’t find some way to help him.”

None of them replied to that because they knew Dally was right. All of them remembered each and every one of Johnny’s past suicide attempts. He’d only landed in the hospital once, but that was only because the gang had found him in time every other time.

“I’ll ask Darry,” Steve said, “when I go get Soda for work tomorrow. He might know somethin’.”

The other two nodded, but as they sat there and brainstormed until they fell asleep, everything sounded like they were just spouting out ideas so they could convince themselves it was possible to fix whatever it was that had happened to Johnny.

But Dally thought that he was beyond fixing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had a really bad day, so this was nice to write. i rly hope the person who requested it likes it!!
> 
> also i wanna thank y'all who read my stuff and regularly comment. y'all are amazing <3 thank you also to the people who give me ideas and request stuff from me!! <3 <3 you keep this universe going!!


	3. Office Breakdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dallas takes Johnny to therapy, but of course it doesn't go as expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW THIS TOOK FOREVER TO GET TO. i had so many other ideas that i am only JUST NOW getting to my requests rip ;-;

Even as they were driving to the therapy office near the hospital in town, Dally felt like this was a bad idea. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly why. Only that something about this felt wrong. And yet, at the same time, he felt this was necessary. In the past, the gang had been able to help Johnny through anything, but now one of them had been killed and two more of them were so beside themselves with grief they couldn’t do anything other than try to survive themselves. Still, when Dally had suggested therapy for Johnny to Darry, Darry and Soda had agreed.

“As badly as it hurt us what happened,” Darry had said quietly, “Johnny seems to be hit worse.”

And that was true. He was. He could barely function. Sodapop and Darry were still going to work, still making an income. Johnny could hardly do more than sit in a corner of the house he shared with Dallas and shake, his eyes glazed over as he remembered things none of them wanted to imagine. Dally had tried more than once to knock him out of it, but every time he’d reacted violently, hitting Dally’s hand away before blinking and coming back to himself and crying over what he’d done.

“It’s all my fault, Dal,” he gasped out one time, his shaking arms wrapped around Dally’s middle after he’d spent far longer crying than Dally could even keep track of. “Everything. I let Pony die. I shoulda done somethin’.” Then his face as twisted and he’d started crying again, blaming himself for not only Pony’s death, but his reaction to being touched as well.

It didn’t matter how many times Dallas or Steve or Darry or anyone told Johnnythat Ponyboy’s murderer wasn’t his fault. He didn’t believe them.

Dallas tore his eyes away from the road for just a moment to look at Johnny in the passenger seat. He was slumped to one side, his arms wrapped around himself, his eyes glazed over. Dally swallowed hard as his eyes shifted back to the road. He didn’t know what Johnny was seeing, but he knew better than to touch him when he was like this. He just wasn’t sure how he was going to get him out of the car and into the therapist’s office without him freaking out.

It had become like walking on eggshells dealing with Johnny and, while it hadn’t been too far off from that before, after Pony’s death it was like that feeling had intensified tenfold. Johnny couldn’t even be touched now without freaking out. No one blamed him or resented him for it. But they _were_ all worried. None of them had seen him like this. They knew how to deal with him the way he’d been before, but this was ten times worse than they’d ever seen him, even when Dallas had gone to New York for four and a half years and left him behind.

Dallas twitched at the thought, gripping the steering wheel more tightly.

He’d always wondered if he’d never gone maybe Johnny would be better able to cope with what was happening now. But, sadly, he would never know if that were the truth or not. No one would.

He pulled into the parking lot of the office building the therapy offices were in. He sat in the parking space for several minutes, staring at the steering wheel, trying to come up with a better option to help Johnny than this before he finally shut off the engine and turned to Johnny, saying quietly, “Hey. Johnnycake. We’re here. We gotta get out of the car now, okay?”

Johnny sat up slowly, blinking a few times at Dally’s words, coming back to the present from whatever world or memory he’d been trapped in. He looked around as though seeing the world for the first time and gave Dally a smile that looked more like a wince. “Where are we?” he asked his own voice as quiet as Dally’s had been.

“We’re at the therapy office,” Dally replied, his voice still quiet as well.

Johnny swallowed nervously, but said nothing else. He opened the car door and got out, Dallas following him up the steps of the office building and into the lobby. There was a board next to the front doors that listed all of the companies that worked within the building and their room numbers. The therapy offices were on the fifth floor in suit 511. Johnny wasn’t paying attention to anything again, so Dallas led him to the elevators, pressed the button for the fifth floor and watched him nervously out of the corner of his eye as the elevator ascended.

The elevator dinged when it reached their floor and Johnny jumped and started to shake. Dally put his arm around Johnny’s shoulders and his shaking subsided slowly. They walked down the seemingly unending hallway to the door at the end and opened it.

The waiting room of the therapy offices was dimly lit and quiet, which Dallas was grateful for. Johnny didn’t do well in brightly lit loud places. He went up to the receptionists desk and told her who they were there to see. The receptionist smiled and told him to take a seat. When he looked around he saw Johnny was already sitting on the couch, holding himself again, still staring at nothing. Dally swallowed hard. He really hoped this was a good idea.

He sat down gingerly on the edge of the couch Johnny was now lying down on. He watched him shake, his eyes wide, and he swallowed hard, trying not to cry as his heart broke again for what Johnny had been through, all the things that had been done to him. It wasn’t fair. Out of everyone in the gang, he deserved all of this the least.

“Johnny Cade?”

Johnny jumped at the sound of his name and Dally looked over his shoulder to see a woman in her thirties standing at the entrance to a hallway lined with doors. He helped Johnny up, who was blinking himself back into reality again, and led him to the woman.

“Who are you?” she asked, seeing him.

“I’m going with him,” Dallas said firmly, leaving no room for argument.

The woman pursed her lips, clearly wanting to argue, but when she saw the way Johnny was clinging to him she turned on her heel and instead said, “Follow me.”

She stopped in front of a room with the door ajar and gestured for them to go inside. There was a couch and a small armchair across from the couch. Johnny sat down on the couch again and leaned against Dallas as he sat down next to him.

“So!” the woman said, closing the door behind them and turning on a small device that emitted white noise at the base of the door. “What brings you in today?”

Dally glanced at Johnny. He wasn’t responding and even if he weren’t in such a devastated state already, he probably wouldn’t reply anyway. Dally swallowed, looking at Johnny, then turned back to the therapist and said, “He watched his friend get shot a few months ago. He ain’t been right ever since. He’s like...this most of the time. He don’t like bein’ touched. He can’t sleep.” Dally bit his lip, his eyes shifting to Johnny again. “I’m real worried about him. This ain’t the first real big thing he’s been through and...I dunno. He’s doin’ a lot worse than normal.”

 _It’s like something broke in him,_ he thought to himself, but didn’t say out loud.

“Is he like this usually?” the therapist asked, glancing at Johnny herself.

Dallas nodded. “Yeah, now he is,” he replied, his voice quiet. “He wasn’t like this before.”

The therapist nodded, almost to herself, her eyes shifting away to some distant point as she thought. Then she smiled widely and said in a voice that sounded like it was reserved for little kids and small animals, “Johnny? Can I ask you a few questions? I know your friend is answering for you, but I’d really like to hear what you have to say.”

Johnny blinked a few times again, coming back to himself at the woman’s words. “What?” he replied, his voice soft. He sounded like a child.

“It’s okay, Johnnycake,” Dally replied, trying to smile as well. “She just wants to ask you some stuff. I’ll be right here the whole time, I promise.”

Johnny looked up at Dally for a moment, blinking a few more times before he nodded and replied, turning back to the therapist, “Okay.”

“The first thing I’d like to ask is what exactly happened with your friend?”

But that was the wrong question to ask. Dally could tell the minute the therapist asked it. Johnny started shaking, his eyes going wide, and he wrapped his arms around himself. His lips were sealed shut. It seemed he was unable to speak.

The therapist didn’t seem to notice anything was wrong and went on. “Okay. Well. What about your childhood? Can you tell me about that?”

But that was an even worse question. Johnny was shaking harder now, rocking himself back and forth, his eyes having glazed over again.

“Johnny...” the therapist was saying now. “I need you to answer me. That’s how this works.”

But Johnny was whimpering now, rocking himself back and forth even harder. Then his hands went into his hair and he started pulling at it. He let out a scream that made everyone in the room jump. “It’s all my fault! It’s all my fault!” he shrieked over and over again, his fingers still fisting in his hair. Then they went to his arms and started scratching them so hard he drew blood.

Dallas was frozen in shock. Even with everything that had been going on lately, he hadn’t ever seen Johnny like this. The therapist seemed beside herself as well. She tried to shout questions at him over his shrieking, but it was like Johnny was in another world entirely. He couldn’t hear anyone.

Then he stood and staggered back against the wall, holding his face in his hands. He hit the wall so hard his head cracked against the hard plaster and he cried out as he slid to the ground, pulling the tapestry that was handing on that wall to the ground with him by the sheer force him falling. Dally stood instead and knelt in front of him, taking his hands from his face and saying softly, “Johnny, Johnny come back to me. Come back to me. It’s okay. It’s not happening. You’re here, you’re safe. Johnny! Come back to me!”

But Johnny was lost. And everything that usually worked didn’t work at all.

All Dallas could do was wait, watching Johnny scream and shake, quiver and shriek, until finally he wore himself out so much he slumped forward against Dally’s chest and he held him there.

He wasn’t sure how long they’d been in the room, but by the time Johnny finally calmed, the therapist was helping them towards the door, telling them to leave.

“I think you need to admit him to a hospital instead,” the therapist said seriously to Dally as he helped Johnny up and out of the room. “If he’s that volatile from simply being asked about the traumatic events in his past...he needs someone much better equipped to handle those sorts of things. I’m not trained in trauma therapy. Not to this degree.”

Dally was slightly disappointed by the therapist’s words. He didn’t want to admit Johnny into a hospital and he didn’t plan to. But the fact she couldn’t even help him disappointed him and as they headed down the elevator once more and back to the car, Dallas wondered if there was anyone outside of a hospital that even _could_ help him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have plenty more requests for this fic, so if you're enjoying it you're def gonna get more of it!!


	4. Down the Hole Into Blackness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang sees Johnny freak out for the first time since Ponyboy's murder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so glad i'm finally getting to these requests because they're so much fun to write!!

It was Friday and Friday meant the gang was hanging out at the Curtises house before going to the drive-in for one of the later movies. There wasn’t anything good playing, but that wasn’t the point. The point was them all going together. And that had happened so rarely since Ponyboy had been murdered. If anything, now it was just an attempt to make everything seem normal for once, though, they all knew deep down nothing would ever feel normal again. Or at least not for a very long while.

Darry was making dinner in silence. They were all planning to eat before heading over to the drive-in. Sodapop was sitting in the armchair Darry usually occupied, playing with a bouncy ball, staring at nothing. Two-Bit and Steve were playing cards as a drinking game. There were already four beers on the floor between them. Dallas was sitting on the couch with Johnny who was staring off at nothing much like Soda was, but he was leaning against Dallas, his eyes wide. Dally wasn’t even sure he was even seeing the room around him.

The smell of food wafted into the living room from the kitchen, but roused no one. Dally could smell chicken, potatoes and gravy, and green beans. Darry knew how to cook. He was really good at it. And he always was more than happy to make dinner for everyone. He seemed to cook twice as much lately, however, and that was when everyone figured out Darry cooked for more reasons than just because he enjoyed it: he cooked because he could forget about everything while doing it too.

It surprised everyone – including Sodapop and Darry – that neither one of them were the hardest hit by Ponyboy’s murder. He’d been the youngest of the group and the kid brother of everyone after Johnny. Ponyboy had been Johnny’s best and only friend and Johnny had been the one to witness the murder and he was already fragile in terms of his state of mind before that, so maybe it shouldn’t have been all that surprising that he was the one who was most affected by it. Even if Darry and Soda had been working as hard as they could – including Soda dropping out of school – to give Ponyboy a better future than what they had.

However, as much as they’d all heard from Dallas how many times Johnny had flown out of control – he’d told them all about the failed therapy visit – none of them had actually seen it. If it had been any other group of people, Dallas was sure none of them would have even believed anything was wrong with Johnny. He rarely spoke and spent most of his time holding himself and staring off into the distance, but that was only marginally worse than he’d been before Pony’s death.

But that was all about to change.

Finally, after what felt like more than just an hour, Darry called into the living room and told them all it was time for dinner. Soda stood up woodenly, picking up the remote on the end table by the armchair and turning off the TV that no one had been watching. Steve and Two-Bit cleaned up their mess of cards and beer cans and Dally sat up slightly, going to gently shake Johnny, make him come back to reality long enough to eat something – another thing he wasn’t doing enough of lately.

“Johnnycake,” he said quietly, placing a hand on Johnny’s arm, but that was as far as he got.

Without warning, Johnny flung his hand up, knocking Dally’s hand away. Dallas only had enough time to look at Johnny’s face and see the panic and fear there before he started screaming. He stood, staggering to the wall, clutching at his face, pulling at his hair, his hands going beneath the sleeves of his denim jacket and scratching the skin there so hard he drew blood. For several moments, everyone in the room was in shock, watching Johnny slam into the wall near the couch and sink to the ground, looking as though he was trying to push himself into the wall rather than just against it.

Finally, Dallas regained the wherewithal to stand and rush to him. He knelt in front of him, watching as Johnny’s eyes darted around the room, clearly seeing something other than what was in front of him. It was like the therapist’s office all over again and Dally was terrified that he wasn’t going to be able to pull Johnny out of his memories again.

“Johnny!” Dallas shouted, taking Johnny’s hands in his his. He kissed the tips of his fingers, not really caring that the rest of the gang was there to see him. “Johnny! You’re safe! You’re okay! Whatever you’re seein’ ain’t there no more, okay?”

But Johnny only continued to scream and shout, fighting against Dally, railing against his hold on him, trying to get away from him as if he were someone or something else. The sight broke Dally’s heart into a thousand tiny pieces and he had to swallow hard around the lump that had formed in his throat. He had to blink rapidly to keep the tears in his eyes from falling.

Dallas Winston didn’t cry. But when he did it was always over Johnny Cade.

“Johnny,” Dally said softly, his voice shaking though he tried to keep it steady. “Come find me. Come back to me, Johnny. I know you’re in there. You just gotta find me.”

Johnny’s rapid breathing slowed down, his darting eyes flicked to Dally’s and stayed there. He was still shaking like a leaf, but when his face broke and he started to sob that was when Dallas pulled him to his chest saying quietly, “There you are. I knew you were in there. It’s okay, Johnnycake. You’re safe. It’s okay. I ain’t gonna let nothin’ happen to you.”

Johnny clung to Dallas and sobbed until he couldn’t sob anymore, until he was just slumped against him, hiccuping slightly. Eventually, he fell asleep there and Dally picked him up and carried him to Darry’s bed, carefully taking off his shoes, socks, and jacket for him, before covering him with the blankets, praying silently that his dreams would be peaceful.

As he closed the door behind him, he saw everyone in the living room, looking stricken and tense. They all stared at him when he came out of the bedroom and when Darry looked at him, Dallas was shocked to see his eyes were wet and his face was tear-streaked.

“How long has that been happening?” he asked in a voice thick with tears.

Dally swallowed hard, glancing back at the wood of the door as if he could see through it and know what was going on behind it. He turned back to Darry and said, “Since….since it happened.”

He couldn’t even say the actual words. No one could.

Darry pressed his hands together and closed his eyes, pressing his forehead to the side of his clasped fingers. He took a shuddering breath in through his nose and blew it out through his mouth, but it wasn’t enough and moments later his face broke the way Johnny’s had moments before and he was crying again. The sight seemed to scare everyone almost more than Johnny’s panicking had.

No one in the gang cried. But Darry and Dallas least of all.

The fact they both had within minutes of each other showed everyone how dire the situation with Johnny had become.

“He don’t deserve to feel that way,” Soda said quietly into the broken silence that followed. “It ain’t his fault that happened. He knows that...” He looked up at Dally. “Right?”

But Dally didn’t have a reply.

He wasn’t sure if Johnny knew it wasn’t his fault or not.

From his actions, he was going to guess not.

His face must’ve said enough and Soda looked away again, shaking his head as he said, his voice still quiet, “It ain’t fair.”

No one said anything, but they didn’t have to.

They all agreed.

It wasn’t fair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have like 4 or 5 more chapters of this fic to write, but as always i live for requests!!


	5. Broken Flowered Bouquet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cherry brings a bouquet of flowers to apologize to Johnny. Dallas isn't having it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wasn't sure how i was going to do this, but yay i did it!! also i don't hate cherry valance, there are just some things she says and does that rly bother me.

The knock on the front door was what woke Dally up. He and Johnny had decided to take a nap around noon once Dallas had gotten home from work – he’d gone to work around 4 in the morning to help open the garage – and when he checked the clock now it was nearly five. He turned and saw Johnny, sound asleep on his stomach, looking peaceful. The only time he looked that way was when he was sleeping. And it was rare for him to sleep so soundly at all anymore.

The knocking came again and he frowned, drawing his brows together as he threw back the blankets and got out of bed, lighting a cigarette and pulling on a pair of sweatpants as he did so, wondering who on earth would be knocking at the door. The gang usually just came in, whistling as they did so to signal it was one of them rather than a stranger. That meant whoever it was knocking was most likely a stranger. He couldn’t really picture the Socs knocking either if they wanted to come in and do some damage.

There was a peephole in the door that had been installed by the last owners and Dally used it now to see who was on his front stoop. When he saw who it was, he looked away, even more confused than he’d been when he heard the knocking.

It was Cherry Valance. Carrying a bouquet of flowers.

What was she doing here?

A part of Dallas felt anger surge up in him as he remembered she was the girlfriend of the Soc who had murdered Ponyboy, the Soc who had beaten and assaulted Johnny four different times. The Soc who had ruined Johnny’s life over and over again to the point that now he couldn’t be alone, now he couldn’t even speak about his past without falling apart. As far as he knew, she was still dating him, despite knowing all that had happened. It wasn’t exactly a secret that Ponyboy had been murdered. And the Socs had gotten off scott-free. They hadn’t even been arrested. The murder wasn’t even addressed by local law enforcement. As far as they were concerned, it’d never happened.

He clenched his hands into fists and grit his teeth. What could she possibly want? What was she here for? To gloat? To tell them again how great her boyfriend was? He didn’t want to hear it. Not now. Not after everything that had happened. There was nothing she could do or say that would makeup for what had happened to Ponyboy. For what was now happening to Johnny.

She knocked again, startling Dallas out of his thoughts and before he could really think better of it, he flung open the door and glared at her. “Why are you here?” he asked, every word laced with venom and hatred, but he hardly cared. No one understood what they had done to Johnny. And if they did, they didn’t even seem to care. She was no different. Even with the guilty look on her face and the bouquet of flowers in her arms.

Cherry seemed taken aback by Dally’s reaction, her mouth open slightly as she tried to figure out what to say. Dally watched her swallow nervously, her eyes looking away, before she said, “I came to see Johnny. Is he here?”

“He’s busy,” Dally replied, leaning against the door jamb and crossing his arms over his chest.

Cherry swallowed again. “Well, can you give him these for me?” she asked, holding out the flowers. “I just wanted to tell him I was sorry. I didn’t know it was Bob who killed Ponyboy until last night.” To Dally’s surprise, there were tears in her eyes as she spoke. “I told him to get lost. And...I know you probably hate me and I get why, but I wanted to tell Johnny I’m sorry. I know what he’s been going through –”

But that was when Dally cut her off with a scornful laugh.

“No you fucking don’t,” he said, smiling ruefully. He took a step out of the house so he was only inches from her. “Every day, he wakes up and he screams because of the nightmares he’s had the night before. Every night it takes him hours to get to sleep because of the images in his head. He can’t talk about anything that’s happened to him without getting lost in the memories. His arms look like knife throwing target practice for an inexperienced thrower. He never is present in the world. And that’s all your murderer boyfriend’s fault.”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” Cherry shouted indignant. “And I didn’t know until last night!”

“You really expect me to believe that?” Dally replied, his voice rising as well. “Who did you think it was? Honestly? You’ve known Ponyboy’s been dead for months now and you really didn’t think even once that it was your boyfriend before then? Especially after all he’s done to Johnny before now? Would you even _be_ here if you hadn’t found out it was him?”

Cherry said nothing. She only swallowed hard, frowning, her brows drawn together.

For a moment they were silent, just staring at each other, both of them furious, both of them not knowing what to say to defuse the situation. And then a third voice broke the silence.

“Dallas?”

Dally turned and saw Johnny, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He wore only an overlarge white t-shirt and a pair of underwear. He looked so small, standing there like a child. All that was missing was a teddy bear. The sight broke Dally’s heart and he couldn’t put his finger on why.

Maybe because he knew Johnny had never really gotten to be a child to begin with.

“What’s goin’ on?” Johnny asked, his voice hoarse from sleep.

The anger seeped out of Dallas all at once and his shoulders slumped as his eyes closed and he let out a sigh. “Nothin’,” he said, “Cherry just came over. She has somethin’ for you.”

Cherry glanced at Dally, slightly surprised as he stepped aside, holding open the door for her.

“Hey Johnny,” she said quietly, stepping through the door, smiling, holding out the bouquet.

Johnny looked nervous at first, his eyes wide as he took a step back, starting to breathe quickly.

Dally took a step forward, ready to put himself between Johnny and Cherry if need be.

Cherry seemed to notice what was happening as well and stopped a yard away from Johnny. Dally couldn’t see her face, but he watched her look down before looking back up at Johnny and saying, her voice still quiet, “I just wanted to apologize for what Bob did. I just found out last night that he was the one who-who...killed Ponyboy. I know should’ve known it was him before yesterday, but I guess I didn’t want to believe it.” She looked back at Dally as she said this. Then turned back to Johnny and went on. “Anyway, I can’t possibly understand what you’re going through. I know it’s hard and is hurting you a lot and I know there’s nothing I can do to fix this or make it better for you. Flowers are meaningless in this situation, but-but maybe something beautiful will remind you life isn’t all pain.”

It wasn’t enough. It was nowhere near enough, but when Cherry took a few more steps forward, Johnny didn’t move back. He took the flowers and nodded to Cherry. He didn’t say anything, but Dally wasn’t sure what he could say, what either of them could say. Dallas couldn’t accept her apology. He wasn’t sure he ever could. And he wasn’t sure Johnny could either, but at least she’d done _some_ thing. That was more than anyone else had done.

She headed back towards the door and stopped in the entrance, turning again to look at both of them as she said, “I know the law didn’t do anything to make Bob pay for what he did, but...if any of you want to press charges, I’ll testify for you.”

Then she was gone, darting back down the stoop steps to the car parked in front of the house.

Dally watched her drive away as Johnny silently went to put the flowers in some water. He hated all of the Socs more than he ever had, including Cherry Valance, but she was better than the rest. He had to admit to that at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's like...i think four or five chapters left of this fic?? then unless i get more requests i won't be writing anymore, but i hope y'all enjoy this!! 
> 
> i'm kinda bummed cause no one has been commenting on my stuff lately, but hopefully this will change that.


	6. The Big Bang

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the Fourth of July

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay another request!! :D i've been rly enjoying writing for this universe. the song i listened to while writing this is already over by red, which...rly fits the feel of this entire fic.

Ever since Dally had woken up that morning, he’d been dreading the night to come. Not because he hated the fourth of July – if anything the gang though he loved it _too_ much and was too big of a chance for him to show off his pyromania – but because he knew that it was going to badly upset Johnny.

Before Ponyboy’s death, loud noises had scared him, but all that would happen is he would jump, look in the direction of the sound, and start shaking, something that could easily be cured with a cigarette. Now, however, things were different. Loud noises made him jump up and scream. How many times would that happen tonight? It wasn’t like Dally could go find every person letting off fireworks in Tulsa and tell them to knock it off. That wasn’t going to happen.

So he’d spent the whole day worrying about it and, foolishly he later realized, came up with an idea that he thought just might work: he’d take Johnny to a fireworks display. Maybe seeing the source of the noise would remind him that whatever he was afraid of wasn’t going to happen. All that it would result in were beautiful sparks of color.

At least, that was what he hoped for.

He tried to find the earliest showing of fireworks, the ones that would go off first, so Johnny wouldn’t be trapped in the house beforehand, his hands over his ears, rocking himself and humming to himself to keep himself from hearing the explosions coming from outside. He had done that before when hearing loud noises. Dally prayed over and over again as they got into Buck’s car and drove to the park where they were meeting up with the gang for the fireworks display that it wouldn’t happen tonight. Every time it happened it broke his heart.

Johnny had been nothing if not a traumatized mess since the night Ponyboy had been killed and everyone in the gang, including Dallas, was beginning to wonder if he would ever be anything else. They all had thought about taking him to a therapist, but the first attempt had gone so badly, Dally didn’t want to try again. What if they hospitalized Johnny without his consent? He knew they could do that to people like him if they felt like it. And how would Johnny fare in a hospital that didn’t understand him, didn’t get how to take care of him? Dally didn’t want to think about it.

The dirt parking lot of the fairgrounds where the fireworks display was being held was already packed by the time Dally turned into it. He glanced at Johnny and watched him sit up a little straighter out of the corner of his eye. He saw his fingers curl around the edges of the seat he was sitting on, his knuckles going white and Dally already felt a sense of dread, feeling already this was a very bad idea. Johnny didn’t like loud noises, bright lights, or big crowds. This place had all three.

Dally parked as close to the entrance of the fairgrounds as he could, not wanting Johnny to have to stand in the bright parking lot lights surrounded by strangers any longer than he had to. He got out of the car and went around to the passenger side, helping Johnny out. Johnny immediately wrapped his arms around him, clinging to him when he saw the crowd of strangers and Dally shielded him with jacket, holding him just as tightly back. This wasn’t an uncommon practice now that Ponyboy was dead and everything scared Johnny. People stared at them, but Dally only glared and flipped them the bird, daring them to make a comment.

 _They just don’t know,_ he told himself. _They don’t understand. They don’t get it._

But that didn’t stop him from feeling angry and wanting to punch each and every one of their smug, arrogant faces that weren’t even trying to understand their point of view.

They stepped onto the grass and made their way down the hill. Spread out below them they could see many people on picnic blankets and lawn chairs, talking amiably, waiting for the fireworks to start. Dally’s eyes darted around the field of people before finding the gang, waving at them as they saw them approach. Some of them stared when they saw the way Johnny was clinging to him and he could tell from the look in Darry’s eyes when he looked at him that he thought this was a bad idea too.

 _We should’ve stayed home,_ Dally thought as he extricated Johnny from around his waist and sat down, Johnny sitting next to him so close their entire body was pressed against his. _If he freaks out here…I don’t know what’s going to happen._

He tried not to think about it, tried to convince himself that everything was going to be fine, but the feeling of dread he’d had since they’d pulled into the parking lot still hadn’t gone away and whenever he felt this way, it usually tended to be for a reason, even if that reason hadn’t happened yet.

“How is he?” Darry asked, leaning over to Dallas as the rest of the gang tried to occupy themselves with beer bottle cap poker and other card games as they waited for the display to start.

Dally shrugged one shoulder. “The same, I guess.”

Darry only nodded and swallowed hard as he pulled away. It wasn’t a comforting thought.

There was a musical fanfare, coming from the speakers that usually played carnival music during the times of year when the fairs came. Every turned their eyes towards the sky and as the music swelled, long ribbons of sparkling light shot into the air before bursting with a dulled bang in the air above them, throwing light and color all across the sky. The crowd around them oo’d and awe’d, watching the bright neon colors, the music a soundtrack to their bursting bright explosions.

He wasn’t sure how many fireworks had gone off, but it wasn’t long before Dally noticed Johnny squirming in his grip. When he turned to him, he saw him shaking. Then he watched as he wrapped his arms around himself, rocking back and forth and humming. Then he put his hands over his ears, still humming as he shut his eyes tight, but when the next firework went off, he jumped to his feet and started to scream.

Steve jumped up the moment Johnny did, Dally and Darry did as well. Dally could feel the eyes of everyone in their general vicinity looking at them, could hear their disgruntled comments, muffled and incoherent from the fireworks. He took a step towards Johnny, watching as Steve grabbed Johnny by the shoulders, wheeling him around, trying to pry his hands off his ears and get him to look at him, to speak to him, but that was the wrong thing to do.

Before anyone could even react, Johnny smacked Steve’s hands away and punched him. Hard. Hard enough his head snapped to one side and he fell to the ground on one knee. Darry rushed forward, trying to pin Johnny’s hands to his sides as Steve touched his face, seeing blood from his split lip and his bleeding nose.

“Darry stop!” Dally shouted, rushing forward as well. “That ain’t gonna help!”

Darry turned to look at him and opened his mouth to say something, but a moment later, Johnny proved him right by breaking from Darry’s grip with a strength none of them knew he had and hitting Darry as well. He still shrieking, saying broken sentences, staggering around in circles, muttering and humming to himself hysterically as he tried to shut out the boom of the fireworks.

Dally rushed forwards once Darry staggered to one side, going to check on Steve and make sure his nose wasn’t broken. Dallas grabbed Johnny’s hands, kissing the tips of his fingers, the one thing that always worked, always made things better as he said, “Johnny come back. Come back to me. Just find me. I’m here. Just find me.”

But that didn’t work this time and Johnny threw him off too so hard he fell to the ground.

Dally turned, watching Johnny stagger in circles, choking on the sobs that ripped from his chest every time he screamed. There were people gathering in circles around them now, watching Johnny, some of them whispering behind their hands. A few seemed about to tentatively approach him, but Dally wouldn’t let them. Johnny would hurt them too and while the gang knew that Johnny wasn’t in his right mind and therefore didn’t hold it against him, he wasn’t sure the same would be said for a bunch of strangers, especially strangers that were probably Socs.

Pushing himself to his feet as a strange man approached Johnny, he pointed at the man and shrieked, “Don’t touch him!”

The man froze in his tracks as Dallas lurched at Johnny, grabbed his face in his hands shouted, “Look at me! Johnny! Look at me!”

Johnny fought against him at first, trying to throw him off again, but Dally was ready for it this time and didn’t let go, didn’t fall or pull away. He watched Johnny scream, cry, shout words he couldn’t understand, tears in his eyes, trying not to cry, trying to be strong, until Johnny came back to him. He knew when it happened too. His eyes stopped darting every which way and finally settled on Dally’s face as he breathed heavily like he’d been running a marathon. Then his face broke one last time and he started to sob, his knees buckling as he sagged against Dallas who held him up, tears running down his own cheeks as he did so.

“It’s okay, Johnnycake,” he said quietly, his voice shaking from the force of holding back his own sobs. “I’m here. I got you. I ain’t gonna let nothin’ hurt you.”

Johnny continued to jump every time one of the fireworks went off, but he didn’t scream and once Dally thought Johnny could walk, he apologized to the gang, told the crowd of strangers to fuck off, and headed towards the car to take Johnny home.

“You don’t gotta apologize,” Darry told him and Steve nodded in agreement. “It ain’t his fault. It’s the Socs. They did this to him. To us.”

The rest of the gang nodded in agreement and Dally smiled thinly, knowing Darry was right and hating it. Not because he didn’t want it to be true, but because it _was_ true. And that wasn’t a goddamn thing they could do about it.

The Socs got away with anything. They got away with murder. Literally. And the greasers, blamed for every little thing that went wrong in town, couldn’t get anyone to side with them, couldn’t get anyone to see their side of the story or get justice for their friend, a fourteen year old kid, who had been murdered by the very group of people everyone praised.

 _It ain’t fair,_ Dally thought, not for the first time as he helped Johnny into the car. He was humming and rocking himself back and forth again, his fingers in his ears to block out the sound and Dally’s heart broke all over again.

It was going to be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment if you read!! i haven't been getting very many comments on my stuff lately and it's bumming me out :/


	7. Off to Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dally goes back to work, but Johnny doesn't want him to

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally updated this again!! i'm trying to get more of my other requests as well as this one, so that's why it's taking me a little longer to update this fic than it usually does!! if you have a request pls feel free to comment it below!! or on any of my fics!!

It had been a week since the fourth of July and Dallas had stayed home from work with Johnny in all of that time. But he couldn’t stay home forever. He still needed to earn money so they could continue to live together, so he could continue to take care of him and help him get better. None of that could happen if they lost the house and had to live on the streets or with their parents again. So Dallas, as much as he didn’t want to, had to go back to work.

He got up early the Monday after the fourth of July and woke Johnny up too after he’d already gotten dressed. He wasn’t sure how Johnny would react to him going to work and he certainly wasn’t going to leave him home alone, so he walked him over to the Curtis place, wishing more than anything he had another place to take him, unsure of how he would cope with being in the house full of so many memories of his best friend who had been murdered in front of him.

Johnny had barely spoken since the fourth of July and now as Dally watched him out of the corner of his eye as they walked down the street towards the Curtis house, watching him stare blankly ahead, his eyes wide, he wondered if Johnny would ever be who’d been before Ponyboy’s death again. It wasn’t like he’d been stable then either, but he’d been more stable, more able to deal with the pressures of daily life. Now he couldn’t even do that. And Dally really wondered if he ever would be able to again. So far it seemed like the answer to that question was no.

Dallas only had to knock twice on the door before Darry answered. He didn’t say anything and only stepped back to let them inside. Johnny was holding himself, his eyes wide and blank, seeing nothing of the world around him, but still moving forward to step into the house. Dally watched as he went to the couch and sat down before falling to one side and lying on it, staring now at the muted television in the Curtis’s living room that Two-Bit was watching cartoons on while drinking a beer.

“What’s happened?” Darry asked instantly, looking over at Johnny nervously. “Is he okay?”

Dally shook his head, glancing over at Johnny as well as he said, “Yeah, he’s-he’s okay right now. But I gotta go back to work, Darry. I’m gonna lose my job and we ain’t gonna be able to eat if I don’t go back to work soon, so...so can you watch him while I’m gone? I don’t want him to be alone.”

Darry nodded in understanding. None of them wanted Johnny to be alone. Not anymore. There were too many things he could do to himself if he were alone. Even if it seemed like he was unable to do those things now, Dally knew Johnny was capable. The only reason he didn’t was because he was being watched like a hawk by himself and the rest of the gang.

 _This is all your fault,_ a nasty voice whispered in the back of his head. _If you’d been with him and Ponyboy that night, you coulda stopped it._

Dally believed the voice, though he still wasn’t sure how he could’ve stopped Ponyboy’s murder without getting murdered himself. And if that had happened, Johnny would still be in the same state he was now. Maybe even worse. But still. He should’ve done something. Stopped them from going to the park, stopped them from going home alone. _Some_ thing.

Then Johnny wouldn’t be this way. And Ponyboy would be alive.

He swallowed hard, staring at Johnny for a moment before he turned back to Darry and said, “Okay. I’ll see y’all around eight.”

It was as if something snapped. Dally could feel the tension in the room break the moment he spoke and headed towards the door and it was this that made him pause and turn to Johnny, jumping up from the couch and running to him. He wrapped his shaking arms around Dally’s middle and began shaking his head, moaning and whimpering incoherently.

“Johnny,” he said, softly, holding him back. “What is it? It’s okay, man.”

“No,” Johnny said, his voice still a whimpering moan. “No, don’t leave, please don’t leave.”

“I gotta,” he said quietly, his heart breaking at the sound of the words. “I gotta work. Or we’ll end up out on the street. We won’t be able to keep the house if I don’t work, Johnnycake.”

“No!” Johnny shouted this time and Dally knew that a full on meltdown was coming as Johnny’s grip on him tightened into an iron vise. “No! I can’t be alone! I can’t be alone! No! Don’t leave me! Not you too! Please! Please don’t leave me!”

“Johnny!” Dally shouted, though not unkindly. He tried to pry Johnny’s arms off of him as he knelt down in front of him, holding him by the shoulders as he looked into his eyes and said, “I ain’t leavin’ you for good, Johnnycake, you know that. I’m just goin’ to work. I’ll be back in eight hours, okay? I promise. I ain’t leavin’ you, kid. I would never.”

But it was like Johnny hadn’t heard a word he’d said.

He thrashed against Dally’s grip, shaking his head, clawing at his arms, leaving long bloody scratches on them before his hands went up into his hair, pulling at it as he continued to scream. When Dally let go of his arms, he flung them back around Dally, this time around his neck, holding him tight. Not tight enough to cut off his air, but tight enough that Dally wasn’t sure how to make him let go.

And Dallas himself was at a loss.

He had to work. There was no question about that. But with Johnny behaving like this how could he? How could he leave when Johnny was screaming, panicking, thinking he was going to leave him forever? And how could he convince him that he wasn’t? He couldn’t bring him to work with him for multiple reasons, the main one being that if he had a meltdown at work, there would be nothing Dallas could do to comfort him. But he couldn’t make himself leave him here either.

Not for the first time, Dallas felt stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Not for the first time, Dallas hated the Socs that had done this to Johnny, wishing them slow and painful deaths, wishing he had the honor of granting them those himself.

Finally, still holding Johnny, Dallas sat on the couch and began to rock Johnny like a small child, humming to him a lullaby his mother had sang to him when he was a child before she died. For several long moments, Johnny continued to shake and whimper, continued to beg him not to leave, but then he relaxed and he went limp in Dally’s arms. After a few more moments, he was asleep and Dallas was finally able to pry him off of him and lay him down on the couch.

Darry came in a few moments later with a cup of water. “It’s got sleepin’ pills in it,” he said quietly, but he didn’t look at Dallas as he said it. He seemed ashamed to be drugging Johnny, but Dally agreed with Darry. At this point, it seemed to be the only thing they could do.

Dallas watched as Darry helped Johnny sit up, helped him drink the water, and then watched as Johnny slumped back on the couch asleep, his mouth open slightly, one hand on his stomach. He breathed slowly and deeply and Dally stared at the bloody scratches on Johnny’s arms, the blood hiding the scars there from having used his switchblade on himself time and time again.

“I’ll clean ‘em up,” Darry said softly as though reading Dally’s mind. “You go to work. He’ll be okay until you get back. I promise.”

Darry gave a tight-lipped smile then and Dally returned it.

He knew Darry was trying to make him feel better with what he said, but both of them knew the truth: there was no guarantee Johnny would be okay. In fact, there was no guarantee that Johnny would be okay ever again.

And none of them knew how to change that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have 4-5 more chapters before the end of this fic, but tbh i need at least 2-3 more ideas, so if y'all have any pls comment them below!!
> 
> i haven't been getting as many comments on my fics lately and it's really bumming me out :/ so pls comment if you read!!


	8. Drugged for Good Reason

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny wakes up and realizes he's been drugged. Even if Darry meant well, he doesn't like it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i got this as a request and thought it would make for an interestin chapter, so i went with it. the reason this wasn't up yesterday was because i was movin (again) to another place to stay.

The world came back into focus slowly and even then when it did, everything was hazy. Johnny tried to blink it away, tried to focus on anything, but he couldn’t. It felt like the world was spinning around him slowly and when he tried to sit up, it just spun faster. The light was on and it hurt his eyes and he had to squeeze them shut to keep his head from aching, but that only made the spinning worse.

At first, he thought he was sick. He felt the way he did when he was sick, everything happening too fast, everything going in circles he couldn’t stop. He hated being sick. He collapsed back down onto the couch, this time on his side instead of his back, curling himself into a fetal position and holding his pounding head. His eyes were still squeezed shut as he tried to keep himself from feeling nauseous as the world continued to spin on, even if he couldn’t see it now.

And then a horrible revelation dawned and his eyes snapped open and he sat upright, breathing fast, his eyes wide with fear, his heart pounding in his chest.

He could hardly remember the night before. That tended to happen when he had a breakdown, but he did remember the cup Darry had given him. He did remember the water. He did remember how he’d gotten so tired afterwards and fallen asleep almost instantly. And though he knew, deep down, the gang would never do anything to him while he was asleep, the fact remained that Darry had put something in the water, he’d drugged him to make him pass out. Even if he’d had good intentions, it’d still been done and a deep sense of betrayal washed over him, filling him.

Grimacing, Johnny put his face in his hands, letting out a whimpering moan, struggling with everything in him to not scream until his voice was hoarse. Despite everything he’d just realized, if Darry was asleep in the other room, he didn’t want to wake him.

He moaned again.

 _They were just trying to help you,_ a voice in the back of his mind whispered. _You wouldn’t calm down so they gave you something so you would. They were just trying to help._

“They drugged me!” he shouted at the voice, hardly realizing he’d said the words aloud. He covered his face with his hands again. “It don’t matter what their intentions were! They still did it! They did what _he_ used to do!”

But even as he said it, he knew that was an unfair assessment.

No one, except him, knew that his father used to drug him so he wouldn’t fight back when he wanted to hurt him or when he would allow his friends to hurt him. No one even knew that his father had allowed his friends to assault him the same way he did.

But that didn’t make the sense of betrayal go away. That didn’t make him feel any better.

He looked around the room. No one was there. The house was silent. For all he knew it was empty. And somehow that made everything worse. That made him wonder exactly what had happened while he was sleeping. While he was _drugged_ and sleeping.

 _Nothing bad happened,_ the same voice whispered in his mind. _You know it didn’t._

But did he?

No, he didn’t. Not really. The voice could be wrong.

And suddenly every inch of Johnny’s skin felt like a live wire, like something he couldn’t escape no matter how hard he tried. He threw back the blanket someone had put over him and ran out of the house, down the street, through the darkened neighborhood, not sure where he was going, not sure where he would end up, just knowing that he had to get out of there, had to be away from all of the people that were in that house. Away from Darry and Steve and Two-Bit and Dallas too.

He had to be away from everyone who had been apart of what had just happened.

And, truthfully, he didn’t know if he were coming back.

* * *

Dally had been in the kitchen making Johnny some dinner for whenever he woke up. However, when Johnny _did_ wake up, he was in the bathroom. He heard a moan from the living room and knew immediately something was wrong, but he couldn’t exactly jump up off the toilet and run out to see what was up. He wanted to finish using the bathroom first. However, by the time he was done, he heard another moan and then the sound of the door banging open and then shut again. He practically ran out of the bathroom and out onto the porch, just in time to see Johnny running as fast as his legs would carry him down the street.

He called after him, telling him to come back, but it was like Johnny was in another world, unable to hear and see the world around him. Dally knew only because he’d seen him this way before. The only difference between then and now was Dallas could almost always get through to him. No matter how far into his despair he got, Johnny could always recognize Dally’s voice. The same could not be said of tonight and by the time Dallas thought to run after him, he’d already disappeared down a side street and into the night.

Turning on his heel, Dallas rushed back into the house and went into Darry’s room. He was asleep on his side and any other night he might’ve thought twice about waking him, but this was different. Johnny couldn’t be alone. Not anymore.

Darry looked at him blearily as he shook him awake and said in a voice thick with sleep, “Dallas? What is it?” Then he seemed to register the look on Dally’s face and said, “Shit, Dal, what’s goin’ on? Is Johnny okay?”

Dally shook his head. “No, man, he – he ran off. I dunno where. I think...” He bit his lip looking away. “I think he found out we drugged him, man.” Then he squeezed his eyes shut and grimaced as he shook his head, saying, “I shoulda known that was a bad idea. I shoulda told you no.”

The thought of Johnny running off into the night by himself to anywhere in the world made Dally’s heart rate quicken. What if something happened to him? What if the Socs found him? They’d hurt him four times already. Five if you counted the night they killed Ponyboy and all that had happened after, which Dallas did. What if they did something to him again? Would he be able to handle it without his body giving out? Without losing his mind? Dallas didn’t think so. Johnny was already in a fragile state. One more bad thing and he would lose it completely.

“Shit,” Darry said, throwing back his blankets and getting up quickly. He ran into the bathroom, splashing his face with cold water before he grabbed Dallas by the arm and said, his mind clearly going along the same train of thought that Dally’s had been, “C’mon. We gotta go find him before someone else does.”

* * *

Johnny’s legs finally gave out at the edge of the neighborhood. Or, more like, he stopped abruptly at the street that led from the neighborhood into town like he’d hit some sort of wall and couldn’t go any further. His legs felt like jello and he stood for several moments, staring down the street, illuminated only by streetlamps, before his knees buckled and he collapsed. He sat down at the pavement, sobbing, his hands holding his upper body up curling into fists as he cried. He watched his tears splash onto the ground before disappearing into the darkness of the road beneath him, the only sign they were there at all the reflection they caught from the streetlights.

 _They drugged me!_ He thought over and over again. _They drugged me! They drugged me! They drugged me! They drugged me!_

 _They didn’t mean to hurt you,_ the voice in his head reminded him. _They were just trying to help you. They just wanted t you to calm down. They couldn’t think of what else to do._

And then a worse thought came to his head.

_This is my fault. This my fault cause Ponyboy’s dead and I can’t handle it. And now the only way anyone can help me is by druggin’ me when Dally can’t calm me down. Cause he’s the only one who can anymore. And I have no right to feel this way. It’s all my fault. Everythin’. It’s my fault._

Johnny put his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking as he sobbed. The worst part was he couldn’t even argue with those thoughts. They were all right. It _was_ his fault that Ponyboy had died. He hadn’t done a single thing to stop it. It _was_ true that only Dallas could calm him down and that when he couldn’t, no one knew what to do. And it was true that the gang had had to drug him as a result. If he’d just been able to calm down, he wouldn’t be here right now, sobbing in the middle of the street, blaming himself for everything, though everything was his fault.

“Johnny?”

The voice startled him and he jumped, looking up to see Sodapop standing over him, his brows drawn together, one hand reaching out towards him as if to touch him before he thought better of it and pulled it back towards himself.

Then Soda did something Johnny wasn’t expecting.

He sat down in the middle of the road next to him, staring out at the street before them illuminated by streetlights like Johnny had been moments before. Vaguely, Johnny wondered where he’d come from and realized in almost the same moment, he must’ve been working late.

“What happened?” Soda asked, his voice quiet. “Why ain’t Dally with you?”

Dally had become Johnny’s kin and keeper, if not in the strictest sense of the word, but everyone knew it and everyone had come to expect seeing them together. To see one without the other was the first sign something was wrong, even if Soda didn’t know what.

Johnny was still shaking, still crying, and mostly thankful that Soda was pretending not to see. He felt so weak. He cried all the time and the rest of the gang hardly cried at all. He managed to force back his tears long enough to say, “It’s Darry. And-and Dallas. They drugged me.”

Soda looked at him and there was shock written all over his face. “What? Why?”

Johnny shook his head, but he said, “Cause I wouldn’t calm down. They couldn’t get me to calm down any other way. I-I know Darry thought he was doin’ what was best, but...” He swallowed hard, trailing off, unsure if he should tell Soda the story about his father and then, deciding quickly, he went on, “But they don’t know about what my old man did to me.”

“You mean how he beats you? They know that, Johnny. We all do.” Soda said, though there was something in his voice suggesting he knew that wasn’t exactly what Johnny was talking about.

But Johnny was already shaking his head. He could practically see Soda swallowing hard in nervous anticipation of what he was going to say before he turned to look at him and said, “No. No I ain’t talkin’ about that. It-it’s somethin’ else.” He realized with a start that Soda didn’t even know his father had assaulted him like the Socs had before. He didn’t think Soda even knew about the Socs. Only Dallas knew everything and now he realized just how little the rest of the gang knew about him.

He took a shuddering breath and launched into his story. “My old man don’t just beat me, Soda,” he said, his voice quiet, barely more than a whisper as he spoke. “He’s done...worse things. The Socs have too. They didn’t just beat me either. They-they...”

He grimaced and _tsk_ ed himself as he realized he couldn’t even say the word, but out of the corner of his eye he saw Soda’s eyes widened and his mouth open in shock and he knew he’d gotten his point across just fine.

“An-anyway,” he went on, his hands shaking now, “My old man used to drug me when he wanted to...share me with his friends, so I couldn’t fight back. That’s...that’s why it bothered me.”

Soda was quiet for a long time, just staring at him, his face still that same expression of shock, and for several moments Johnny thought it was disgust too, he thought Soda would get up, run home and tell everyone what he’d just told him and they would all be disgusted too and reject him forever. But instead Soda did something else, surprising Johnny for the second time that night.

He wrapped him in his arms and held him, saying, “ _None_ of this is your fault, okay, Johnnycake? Your folks are evil people. So are the Socs. You’re innocent, okay? I promise, man.”

Johnny couldn’t speak. He only broke down again, clinging to Soda, letting him hold him as he cried with abandon, cried until he had no more tears left and was instead shaking and hiccuping in his arms. It wasn’t until then he realized they were also no longer alone.

“Oh thank god, you found him,” he heard a familiar voice say, but it took him a moment to place it, so lost in his grief that everything sounded foreign.

It was Dallas. He turned away from Soda to look up at him and saw Dallas, breathing heavily, pacing, his head in his hands as he muttered the same words over and over again, “Thank god, thank god he’s okay. Thank god.”

Darry was there too and he knelt down in front of them and asked, his voice soft, “You okay, Johnnycake?” When Johnny nodded, Darry looked away for a moment before he added, his voice still quiet, “Look, I’m sorry for what I did. I shouldn’ta done that, no matter how upset you were.”

Johnny shook his head, trying to say it was okay, but he seemed to have lost his ability to speak.

“C’mon,” Darry said, standing. “Let’s go back home.”

Soda helped Johnny stand and, to everyone’s surprise, continued to cling to him as they headed back to the Curtis’s house. Dally kept looking back at him, his features nothing if not guilt-ridden. Darry didn’t look back at all, but his hands were clenched into fists and he stared at his feet as he walked, a sign he felt the same way Dallas did.

 _It’s your fault,_ the same voice in Johnny’s head reminded him as they went up the steps into the Curtis’s house. _It’s your fault they feel this way._

And as much as he wanted to argue with it, he knew, as he always did, that it was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is random, but i kinda wanna write somethin about johnny goin to jail instead of gettin burned and paralyzed and dyin. that's probably been done before, but it'd be interestin to write.
> 
> pls comment if you read!! i ain't been gettin as many comments and they're what keep me goin, so pls comment if read!!


	9. What We Talk About And What We Don't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dally and Darry talk to Johnny about what happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i got this as a request, so i hope whoever requested this likes this!!

Ever since Johnny had run out of the Curtis’s house after finding out he’d been drugged, Dallas had felt guilty. Even when Soda brought him back and he fell asleep again on the couch and everything seemed fine, Dally couldn’t stop thinking about Darry giving him the pills, crushed up in his water, couldn’t stop seeing the look on Johnny’s face when they’d found him, couldn’t stop hearing the way Johnny had whimpered and moaned when he’d woken up and realized what had happened.

Though he hadn’t spoken with him about it, he could tell that Darry felt guilty too. He looked at Johnny with a forlorn expression that he hadn’t really worn since Ponyboy’s funeral. He hardly cooked anymore and even when he did, he took a much longer time to do so than he ever had before. He stayed in the room every time Johnny slept over – though he shied away from both of them now – his arms crossed over his chest, watching him, making sure he was okay.

More than once he’d said to Dallas, “We shouldn’ta done it. We shoulda just found another way to help him. We shoulda done somethin’ different. We shoulda known better.”

Dally never replied when he said those things, but he didn’t really have to. He agreed with everything Darry said. And besides, what could he say? There was nothing he could say to make it better or change it. It had happened and it shouldn’t have. That was all there was to it.

However, finally one night, Dally did reply, and he said, “We gotta talk to him about it.”

Darry, who had been sitting in his armchair in living room, watching TV with a blank stare while Johnny slept in the couch pressed up against the wall by the window, looked up at Dallas when he spoke, his brows drawn together as he said, “What?”

Dally returned his stare. “We gotta talk to him about it. About what happened.” He was quiet for a moment, waiting for Darry to respond and when it became clear he wasn’t going to he added, “I think there’s somethin’ he ain’t tellin’ us about why it bothered him so much.”

This time it was Darry who only nodded and didn’t reply and Dally wished he would’ve said something. He didn’t know how to approach Johnny on the subject. He felt like a criminal trying to apologize to the person he had wronged that had made him a criminal in the first place. And in a way that was exactly what had happened.

And after all Johnny had been through, how could he apologize for that?

How could he fix anything without it sounding perfunctory and false? Johnny had been hurt so many times by so many people and now he’d added himself to that list.

Dally’s hands clenched into fists. He wasn’t sure he could’ve hated himself more.

Johnny stirred on the couch and Dally decided all at once that there was no time like the present to make things better. He walked slowly over to the couch, not wanting to startle Johnny as he knelt down next to him and reached out with a tentative hand to brush his hair away from his eyes. However, even with how careful he was, Johnny’s eyes snapped open and he gasped, sitting up quickly, his eyes wide with fear before he relaxed, only slightly, when he realized who’d been touching him.

“Hey Johnnycake,” Dallas said quietly, smiling at him sadly. “How’d you sleep?”

Johnny didn’t speak. He only shrugged his shoulders and looked away.

Dally looked over his shoulder at Darry and said, “We-we wanna talk to ya about...what happened the other day. If that’s okay with you.”

Again Johnny didn’t speak or look at Dally. He only nodded.

A horrified part of Dally wondered if he were telling the truth or if he were just afraid to say no.

He heard shuffling and saw Johnny’s eyes flick behind him as Darry came over too. Dally looked over his shoulder to glance at Darry before turning back to Johnny, taking a deep breath and saying, “I’m sorry we drugged you, Johnny. We...didn’t know how else to calm you down and thought we were helpin’, but that ain’t an excuse, okay? We know that. I know you don’t trust us anymore. And I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t trust us anymore either. But...we still love ya, Johnny. And, I know it’s meaningless to say, but we ain’t gonna do nothin’ like that again.”

For a long time, Johnny was quiet, not looking at them, his hands clasped in his lap, but Dally could see that they were still shaking. Finally, Johnny took a shuddering breath and said, his voice barely more than a whisper, “It ain’t your fault it upset me, Dal. Not really. My-my old man drugged me sometimes when I still lived with him. He’d do it when he wanted to...to have his way with me without me fightin’ back or when he wanted to let his friends...use me.” His eyes flicked to Dally’s, his head not moving. “It ain’t your fault. And I forgive you. I just...can’t stop thinkin’ about _him_.”

This time it was Dally’s turn to be silent for a long time as he took in what Johnny had said.

His father had drugged him? To take advantage of him?

He felt anger fill him and felt that he should have somehow known that. The way Johnny walked sometimes after leaving the house. The way his eyes wouldn’t focus on anything. The way he slept so much sometimes either in the lot or here at the Curtis’s house. He’d just thought he was tired, sick, maybe in pain from what had been done to him. And the thought he hadn’t guessed what had happened, the thought he didn’t know what had happened, made him feel even more guilty for what had happened the other day than he already did.

“Oh god,” Darry said in a light shaking voice, a voice Dally had never heard him use before.

“I’m sorry, Johnny,” Dally said, finally finding his voice. “I-I shoulda known.”

But Johnny shook his head, not looking at them again as he said, “No. I ain’t ever told anyone. I told Soda...that night. But...but no one else knew. Not even...not even Ponyboy.” He winced as he said his name and Dally felt even more guilty.

After all Johnny had been through, he’d only put him through more hell.

Darry went to bed not long after that, saying something in a mumble about having to get up early the next day for work. Dally stayed next to the couch, watching Johnny relax again and then fall asleep, but this time he was holding Dally’s hand and Dally was brushing his hair out of his eyes, watching him sleep, wishing he could make everything better.

 _He doesn’t deserve this,_ he thought not for the first time.

Out of everyone in the gang, Johnny deserved to feel this way the least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't have many more chapter ideas after this, but i do need like...2 or 3 more at least, so if y'all have any ideas please lemme know!!
> 
> i ain't been gettin' as many comments on my writin' lately and it's rly makin' me sad, so if you read this pls comment!!


	10. Pet, Kid, Child, Children

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny is the gang's pet, but he doesn't necessarily like it being that way anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi rip i’m sorry this is takin’ me forever to get stuff out lately, i ain’t been in a good place for...like the past few weeks so writin’ is real hard, i’ll try to have my next chapter out the day after tomorrow at the latest

It wasn’t until after the drugging incident that Johnny began to notice it: the way everyone treated him differently, like a child, a kid, rather than himself. Distantly, he realized they’d always sort of treated him this way, calling him ‘kid’, calling him their pet. But it felt somehow that that had been different, kinder, less demeaning. This, despite the fact he knew that the gang didn’t really mean it that way, just felt condescending and rude.

_Johnnycake._

_It’s okay, kid._

_You’re the pet!_

The words echoed in his head and he didn’t know how to make them stop without hurting someone in the process. But the more he thought about it, the less he cared about hurting someone and the more he cared about it just stopping altogether.

He sat on the couch in the Curtis’s living room as he thought this, his and Dally’s usual hangout because Dallas couldn’t be with him all the time and someone needed to watch him while Dallas was at work. He was bitter about this too. He understood the logic, he understood why they all believed he needed to be watched and, in truth, he didn’t really think he should be alone either. Bad things happened when he was alone.

But sitting in that living room, thinking about everything he was, it felt like just one more way the gang didn’t trust him, one more way they condescended to him and insulted his intelligence.

 _That’s not what they’re doing,_ a soft voice in his head reminded him. _They’re trying to protect you from yourself. From your memories. From all your pain._

But he didn’t want to hear it.

Not even if it were true.

“Johnny?” a voice said somewhere off to his right and he turned quickly. It was Soda. He looked concerned. It wasn’t until that moment Johnny realized he was holding himself, rocking back and forth on the couch. “You okay, kid?”

Any other time he might’ve been grateful for Soda’s concern, might’ve nodded or shook his head or done _some_ thing to acknowledge him and tell him he was okay or not. Especially after what had happened the night Darry and Dallas drugged him. And Soda was his friend. He knew that he didn’t want to hurt him or upset him.

But everything swirled fast in his mind.

_Johnnycake._

_It’s okay, kid._

_You’re the pet._

And it wouldn’t stop.

And when Soda touched him, saying his name again, he jumped back and shrieked, “Stop it! I just want all of you to stop it!”

It was only then he realized there were more people in the room besides Soda. Darry, Steve, and Two-Bit were there too. He couldn’t help thinking that everyone was there...except for Dallas who was at work and Ponyboy who was dead in the ground. At his outburst, they all looked at him, eyes wide and confused. Soda tilted his head to one side and swallowed hard, looking shaken as he said, “Stop what, Johnnycake? What is it?”

Johnny shook his head, pointing shaking hands at Soda as he struggled not to break down crying as he said, “I’m not a child! I’m not a baby! Why-why do you treat me like one?! Cause I saw someone die? And now can’t handle anythin’? That don’t make me a kid! We’re all kids!”

The room was so silent after his speech they could’ve heard a pin drop. Steve and Two-Bit stared at him wide eyed and surprised. Darry’s expression looked shocked, but also unreadable. Soda looked sad and hurt and Johnny immediately felt guilty. He collapsed into a heap on the floor, his entire body shaking as he was wracked with sobs.

“I ain’t a kid,” he said in a broken voice. “I’m just broken.”

For a moment nothing happened. Then he felt Soda’s hand on his back and he jumped again, but this time only because he wasn’t expecting it. He let Soda rub his back, tell him everything was okay even though it wasn’t and pretend for a few minutes nothing bad was happening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didn’t rly intend for this to be so short, but it took me forever to figure out how to start it and once i did i couldn’t rly figure out how to make it longer so...here we are.


	11. Unkept Apologies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Randy comes to apologize, but Dallas isn't having it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took a little longer to get out cause i've had a busy last couple of days and i decided to write somethin' for another fandom in the meantime.

Johnny was asleep. Something that rarely happened anymore and Dallas was cherishing it. The last few nights had been horrible, Johnny waking up at random hours to scream and cry and curl himself into a ball in the corner of the room, rocking himself and whimpering, Dallas unable to do anything except hold him until it passed. Once upon a time, he’d been able to stop Johnny from falling apart. Even after Pony’s murder, he’d known exactly what to do to calm him down. Now it seemed he was so deep into his pain that nothing could stop it. Not even Dallas. And that broke his heart in two.

They were sitting together on the couch, the TV on, the volume low. Just high enough that Dallas could hear what they were saying, but low enough that it wouldn’t wake Johnny up, whose head was resting in Dally’s lap, his mouth slightly open, one hand resting on Dally’s lap as well near his face, curled into a loose fist like a sleeping child. Dally’s hand was carding through Johnny’s hair absently as he watched some cartoon whose name he couldn’t remember as he did so. He was glad for Johnny’s peace at the moment, but his mouth was set into a grim line, knowing the minute Johnny’s eyes opened, it would start all over again and again he’d be able to do nothing until Johnny fell asleep once more. Whenever that may be.

Not for the first time, Dallas thought about how unfair all of this was.

Johnny had done nothing wrong except be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It had been him who’d originally spoken to Cherry and Marcia, him who had made it so Johnny had to stand up for Cherry, him who had made it so the girls had asked him and Ponyboy to come sit up with them and then walk them home, incurring the wrath of her boyfriend, who then found the two of them at the park in the dead of night, before shooting Ponyboy dead. All of this, at the end of the day, was his own stupid fault and Johnny was the one paying the price for it.

In that moment, Dallas wasn’t sure he could’ve hated himself more.

A knock at the door startled him out of his thoughts and for several moments, he’d been sure he’d imagined it. Then the knock came again. He looked down first at Johnny, still asleep in his lap, making sure the noise didn’t wake him, before he carefully extricated himself from Johnny, putting a pillow under his face instead of himself, covering him with a blanket, before going to the door and looking through the opaque glass to the right of the door to see who was outside. If it had been the gang, they would’ve just come in, whistling their “who’s there” whistle as they did so, so neither he nor Johnny wouldn’t be startled when the door opened, thinking it was a potential threat.

But when Dallas saw who it really was, he frowned, his brows drawing together and his teeth gritting. Of all the people who could be outside the door, the person he saw was not who he expected. He clenched his hands into fists, trying to keep them from shaking with anger as he opened the door to the face of Randy Adderson, the second in command of the group of Socs who’d killed Ponyboy.

Instead of inviting him inside, Dallas stepped outside onto the small stoop, shutting the door behind him, not wanting to wake or disturb Johnny. Randy didn’t look angry. In fact, he looked the dead opposite, but Dallas didn’t really care. It may have been Bob Sheldon who pulled the trigger, but, in Dally’s opinion, he was just as guilty for Ponyboy’s death and Johnny’s state of mind.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest, leaning against the door, letting Randy know he was _not_ going to come inside. Not over Dally’s dead body.

“I came to see Johnny,” Randy replied, taken aback by his anger. “Is he around?”

Dally shrugged. “That’s not really any of your business. Now leave. Before I make you.”

Randy sighed. “Look, I know what happened to his friend wasn’t right. I really – I really didn’t think Bob was going to _kill_ him. And...I heard about how Johnny’s been doing ever since. Please. I just want to let him know I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

Dally let out a bitter laugh, throwing his head back, his entire body shaking with anger as it finished, leaving a bad taste in his mouth. “You didn’t mean for any of this to happen?” he asked incredulously. “Really? Why didn’t you turn your friend in then? Were you afraid of gettin’ in trouble too? If you know what you did was wrong, why the _hell_ should that matter?”

“Yes,” Randy said frowning, his own brows drawing together now. “I _was_ afraid of getting in trouble and I still am, but I want Johnny to know I’m sorry Bob killed his friend. I –”

But Dally cut him off. “You’re not sorry,” he said. “You just feel guilty. You say you’ve heard how Johnny’s been doing, but how much do you really know? Do you know what he’s been goin’ through ever since that night? Do you? Cause I can catch you up if you like.”

Randy seemed more taken aback now than he had before. “I’m not sure that’s ne –”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’re not,” Dally cut him off again. “But I’m gonna tell you anyway because you deserve to know what you did.” He started to count it off on his fingers as he spoke, staring at Randy with venom in his eyes as he spoke. “He can’t sleep. He barely eats. He’s in a constant state of panic and there’s nothin’ any of us can do to calm him down if he starts to freak out. And he _does_ freak out. He screams and tears his hair out and hurts himself until the memories of what _you_ and _your_ friends did _finally_ go away and there is _nothin’_ _any_ of us can do to stop it until it stops!” Dally was shouting by the time he go to the end of his speech, breathing heavily like a wild bull. He pointed viciously at Randy. “ _You_ did this! _You_ did! _You_ and your friends! And now you want to come and apologize?! When you know nothin’ will change and you still won’t turn your friend in?! Cause you’re afraid?! What the _fuck_ kinda apology is that?!”

Randy swallowed hard, speechless. “I just –”

“You just what, Randy?” Dally spit out. “You just what? Wanna clear your conscience? Well, you ain’t gonna be able to do it here. I ain’t gonna let Johnny go through the horror of seein’ you just so _you_ can feel better. Get lost. And don’t come back until you can apologize and mean it.”

Randy seemed to be able to tell the conversation was over and without another word, turned on his heel and went back down the front steps to his car. Dally watched, shaking with anger, on the front stoop until Randy turned at the end of the street and his car disappeared. He’d wanted to deck Randy, give him a black eye or maybe some broken ribs. He’d wanted to do _some_ thing to make Randy hurt as much as Johnny hurt and maybe then he would understand the gravity of what he’d done.

But he knew he couldn’t do that. Unlike Randy and the other Socs, he wasn’t untouchable. And odds were he’d go to the cops and tell them what happened and then he would be put in jail for who knew how long and he wasn’t willing to risk that. Not when Johnny needed him.

Turning on his heel, he went back into the house, closing and locking the door behind him. When he turned back to the couch, he saw Johnny standing, clutching the blanket around himself, his eyes wide, looking petrified, already gasping for air.

Immediately, Dallas felt guilty. He’d probably yelled too loud and woken him and Johnny could see just fine out the window. He’d probably seen Randy leaving.

“Johnny?” Dallas said quietly, trying to approach him slowly like he might a wounded animal. “Johnny, it’s me. It’s Dallas. Are you okay?”

But Johnny couldn’t answer. His eyes flitted to Dallas for a moment before flitting away, back out the window to where the specter from all his nightmares had appeared only moments before. He was breathing so quickly that he swayed on his feet, not getting enough air. Dallas rushed to him, taking Johnny’s face in his hands as he said, “Johnny! Breathe! Breathe! It’s okay!”

But that was the wrong thing to do.

Johnny began to scream, jumping back away from Dallas, hitting the wall as he gasped for air, muttering incoherent sentences as he held his face between his hands, his eyes wide, gasping for breath. The blanket slid off his shoulders and fell to the floor and Dally was frozen in place, unsure of what to do, wanting to comfort Johnny, knowing at the same time there was nothing he could do to make this better, to fix this. He would just have to wait it out. Just like he always did.

It seemed there was something that could make him hate himself more than than the knowledge that all of this was his fault: the knowledge that he couldn’t fix it either.

Then something happened, something that had never happened before.

Johnny took his hands away from his face and looked up at Dallas. His eyes were still wide, his mouth parted slightly as he gasped for air. Then his eyelids fluttered, his hands dropped and without warning his knees buckled and he collapsed.

Dally barely reached him in time, barely catching him before he fell to the floor. He wasn’t sure what had just happened, but he felt if someone asked him he could guess and everything that had just happened with Randy made him angry all over again.

 _They made him like this,_ he thought, gritting his teeth and grimacing as he picked Johnny up and brought him to the bed before going back to the kitchen for a cool rag to put on his forehead. _They killed his best friend and did this to him and they don’t even care about anythin’ except savin’ their own worthless skins._

His hands shook as he went back into the bedroom with the rag.

He placed the rag on Johnny’s forehead, watching him, waiting for him to wake up, praying the world would be easier on him once he did, trying not to notice how this time he looked like he was in pain, even while he was unconscious.

He wondered what would happen to him next. Would Johnny kill himself? Would he die in some other accident related to his current behavior? He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to have to find out. But this wasn’t getting better. It was only getting worse and in truth Dallas could think of no worse thing that could possibly happen at this point than what already had.

 _He doesn’t deserve this,_ he thought miserably, not for the first time.

But it didn’t matter if Johnny didn’t deserve it. He couldn’t change it. He couldn’t make it better. And he was starting to wonder at this point if anything ever would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is similar to the one with cherry i know, but i enjoy writin' stuff like this


	12. Two-Bit Hijinks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A commercial is too loud, but Two-Bit makes it better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rip i am still havin' a hard time gettin' chapters out i'm sorry.

The rest of the gang had decided to go out to a movie at the drive-in. Johnny had wanted to go, but Dallas had put stop to it. After what had happened with the fireworks, he knew that any sort of loud noise during the movie would set him off again. He didn’t know what would happen if he were in a place with so many people close together. Most people didn’t tend to understand when someone hit them, even if it were a trauma response, even if they couldn’t help it. If someone called the police on Johnny and he were arrested? He couldn’t imagine what might happen to him if he were put in jail. And that was assuming the cops didn’t shoot him first for being so out of hand.

No. It was best if they stayed back at the Curtis’s house and watched TV instead. Two-Bit hadn’t wanted to go either, so he was sitting with them, going through beers like they were nothing. Dally had thought about drinking too. Being around Johnny so traumatized and wound up made him want to drink, but if he drank then he wouldn’t be able to help Johnny if something happened. It was best, as much as he did not want to, that he stayed sober.

Two-Bit sat in Darry’s arm chair, on his fourth or fifth beer. Dally sat on the couch, staring blankly at the television in front of him, not really seeing the cartoons flashing by on the screen. He was staring at Johnny out of the corner of his eye, watching him stare just as blankly at the TV, his eyes wide and fearful, his hands clutching at his knees and shaking.

Not for the first time, Dally’s hands clenched into fists and he wished he could kill the Socs that had killed Ponyboy and done this to Johnny. Hadn’t the kid been through enough? Hadn’t the Socs already tortured him enough? What made them think they needed to hurt him more? Especially after everything he went through at home without their help?

Suddenly, the cartoons went to commercial. A very loud commercial. Even with the volume turned almost all the way off. And of all things, of course, it was a commercial for firecrackers. Which, really didn’t even make sense. The fourth of July was long since over. Why were they advertising for them now? For New Years? That was still a few months off.

Immediately, his eyes flicked from the TV to Johnny, now rocking himself while holding himself, his lower lip trembling as he let out soft whimpering moans. Again, Dally felt a surge of anger towards the Socs who had made it so Johnny could not even hear a loud commercial without falling to pieces. Johnny had been hurt before, yes, but after Pony’s death he’d fallen apart completely. And as the days passed, he fell apart even more. Now, even Dallas couldn’t make him feel better. He didn’t know how anymore. He didn’t know what to do. Nothing worked. And that was a greater hell than anything else: the knowledge that he was helpless and useless. His use had been helping Johnny. Now he couldn’t even do that anymore.

Two-Bit noticed what was happening at the same time Dally did. Dally turned to Johnny, trying to take his hands in his own, trying to get Johnny to look at him as he said in a quiet voice, “Johnnycake, it’s okay. It’s just on the TV. It can’t hurt you. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

But that wasn’t working. Johnny was shaking his head, still whimpering, trying to pull his hands out of Dally’s grip as his eyes strayed from Dally’s face to the television set in front of them. Dally felt his own panic rising. What would happen if Johnny had a full on meltdown and he couldn’t get him to calm down? What if he hurt himself during it?

That was, at the end of the day, Dally’s biggest fear: something bad happening because he couldn’t calm Johnny down quick enough.

Without warning, Two-Bit jumped up, a silly grin on his face as he called out in a voice louder than the TV, “Hey! Johnny! Watch this!” He tilted his head back and put his still half full beer bottle on his forehead, watching it as he tried to keep it balanced without falling. To Dally’s complete surprise, Johnny’s gaze flicked from the TV to Two-Bit making a fool of himself and his whimpering stopped.

Johnny was still shaking badly, but he was transfixed by Two-Bit’s antics. Two didn’t last very long. A moment later the beer bottle tipped forward and spilled beer all down his front. Two-Bit started laughing and Dally, who didn’t think he could be more shocked than he already was by Johnny’s reaction, saw a ghost of a smile cross his lips.

Johnny was smiling? Almost smiling? He hadn’t done either since Ponyboy died. Dally couldn’t even remember the last time Johnny had smiled.

“Do it again, Two,” Dally said quickly.

Two-Bit picked up another bottle, this one full, trying to balance it on his forehead again. He couldn’t even get it properly placed before it tipped forward, soaking him in beer, making him look like he’d just taken a shower in ale.

Johnny smiled a little wider.

Two-Bit did it again. And again. Getting covered in more and more beer each time. By the time he was on his fourth or fifth bottle, Johnny was full on grinning, the loud commercial all but forgotten and Dally was laughing and smiling too. Not because he thought Two-Bit was funny – in truth he thought Two was an idiot – but because Johnny was smiling. And as the fifth bottle spilled all down Two-Bit’s back this time, Johnny began to laugh.

The sound was music to Dally’s ears. Two-Bit was laughing too even though he’d ruined his hair and the shirt he was wearing and was soaked to the bone in beer he’d bought with his own money. But when had been the last time either of them had heard Johnny laugh? He couldn’t even remember. It had been ages. Months. It felt like much longer. Like years.

“That’s funny, Two,” Johnny said, still laughing, sounding for just a moment like his old self.

“You wanna try?” Two-Bit asked, holding out one of the empty bottles.

Johnny shook his head, but he was smiling as he did it.

Dally, to his own surprise, jumped up and took the bottle. “Bet I can do it better than you can, Two-Bit,” he said grinning.

It turned out empty bottles were easier to balance than full ones and soon Dally was not only balancing the one empty bottle Two-Bit had given him, but the other two as well, on the palms of his hands. Johnny was laughing on the couch, clapping his hands and sounding so gleeful, Dally was certain he had to be dreaming. He’d truly believed he would never hear Johnny’s laughter again.

It wasn’t a very long time later before the rest of the gang came home and saw Two-Bit’s antics and Johnny laughing. Everyone joined in the fun. Even Darry and Soda, who by all rights should’ve been as damaged and devastated as Johnny was by their brother’s death. But Johnny was their brother too in a way and he was the one who was living, the one who needed to be taken care of and, if they could do anything to make him happy, they would.

Eventually, Johnny laughed himself to sleep on Dally’s lap after what felt like hours of making fools of themselves and drenching themselves in beer, juice, milk, and any bottle of alcohol they could get their hands on. Everyone was quiet after that, not wanting to wake him. Darry even turned out the lights and they all watched TV in silence, but they were all smiling too.

 _If we can still make him laugh like that...there’s hope,_ Dally thought as they all stared at the cartoons on the TV. _If he can still laugh like that...he’ll be okay someday. I know it._

He didn’t know it. Not really. He wasn’t sure.

But he had to believe that it was possible for Johnny to get better, to be who he was again.

In truth, he wouldn’t mind taking care of Johnny this way forever, but he wanted to believe he’d get better for Johnny’s sake. It was painful for him to be the way he was now, he knew that. He wanted to believe that someday Johnny would laugh and smile again, laugh and smile more than he did now, more than he ever had.

All he wanted for Johnny was happiness.

That was all he’d ever wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm goin' to visit my gf on saturday, so my updates might be slower than usual, but i'm hopin' to keep up my schedule. pray for me y'all.
> 
> also someone requested this chapter, i can't remember who, but i hope you like it!! i'm rly happy with how this turned out <3


	13. A Bit of Coca Cola Advice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dally is at a loss for what to do for Johnny. Soda helps him out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't remember who requested this, but i hope ya like it!! sorry it took forever and a half to get it out!!

Johnny was fast asleep on the Curtis’s couch. It seemed more and more that he slept there more than the bed he shared with Dally at their house. It wasn’t that Dally minded. It was that he felt helpless. He couldn’t even take care of Johnny anymore without the help of the rest of the gang and somehow that felt like a betrayal of his purpose. His purpose, of course, was to take care of Johnny, look out for him and protect him. It seemed he couldn’t even so that anymore. The Socs had taken that from him too.

Dally hated the Socs. Hated them more than anything for what they had done to Johnny, for the fact they had taken away from him the ability to take care of Johnny. Johnny had been sick and hurt before, yes, but after Ponyboy’s death, he’d completely fallen apart. And not even Dallas – his savior, his protector – could put him back together again. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. And someone, besides him, Johnny, and the rest of the gang, should have to pay for it.

 _They’re Socs, you’re greasers,_ a nasty voice in his head reminded him. _They’ll never pay for what they did because you are seen as worthless and expendable._

The worst part was he voice was right.

No one cared about you if you were a greaser. In fact, they most likely wished you’d just go away. In the eyes of a lot of people, Ponyboy’s death was a good thing because he was just a greaser, just another waste of space that caused mayhem and made life harder for everyone else that lived near him. It didn’t matter if that weren’t true. It didn’t matter if Ponyboy got the best grades in his school and the only indication of him being a greaser was his greasy hair. It only mattered what the others, the Socs, the adults, the police, saw him as and they saw him as a trouble maker.

No one cared about the death of a trouble maker.

No one cared about how the death of said trouble maker affected those around him because they were all trouble makers too.

Greasers were worthless in the eyes of society. His death meant nothing to them.

And justice for it and for what it had done to Johnny was entirely unlikely and unheard of.

The Socs responsible hadn’t even been arrested for what had happened, much less gone to court. The thought alone made Dally’s hands clench into fists and his vision go fuzzy as his jaw clenched and he imagined what he’d do to them if he ever saw them again.

 _Randy’s lucky I have some semblance of self control,_ he thought, staring blankly at the muted TV screen in front of him. _I’d’ve killed him the one time he came over if I hadn’t._

“Dally?” a soft voice said somewhere off to his right.

He turned and saw Sodapop looking at him worriedly. “You okay?”

For a moment, he began to smile, started to come up with some excuse and some reason he was just fine and didn’t need any help, but something in him told him that, just this once, he shouldn’t. His smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared, his nod turned into a shake of his head and he took a sharp breath as he said, “No, man. Not really.”

Soda glanced at the TV for a moment before turning back to Dallas. “Wanna talk about it?”

For several long moments, Dally was silent, staring at the TV instead of Sodapop, trying to think of what to say, but then it just all spilled out at once: “It ain’t fair what happened to Ponyboy,” he said, his own voice shaking. “And it ain’t fair what it did to Johnny. And it’s even more unfair that despite all of that, despite everythin’ the Socs do to us, they never get in trouble. They fuckin’ _killed_ someone, man. If that’d been any of us, we’d’ve been put away for life. But it’s been months, _months_ since it happened and the Socs didn’t even get arrested. It’s like it never happened to them cause we’re greasers and to them we’re worthless. And Johnny is fallin’ apart, man. I do everythin’ I can for him, but it ain’t enough. Nothin’ is enough anymore.” Dally ran his hands up into his hair, grimacing as he did so. “I’m scared, Soda. I’m scared that soon somethin’ is gonna happen no one can fix. And then...then I’ll be alone. And then those goddamn Socs will have taken...everythin’ from me. And no one who can do anythin’ about it will care.”

“I’ll care,” Soda said, his voice soft, quiet. He was looking at his clasped hands as he spoke.

This time Dally did look at him.

“I don’t know if this’ll help,” Soda said, still quiet, still looking at his hands, “but Ponyboy had a lotta anxiety too. Not-not as bad as Johnny, but I was the only one that could ever calm him down. But...sometimes it didn’t work. Sometimes I couldn’t do nothin’ for him. And I felt useless too. But...then I realized there’s always somethin’ you can do.”

Dally shook his head. “There’s nothin’ I can do this time,” he said, his own voice quiet.

“Yeah, there is,” Soda replied without hesitation.

“Okay, Mr. Smartypants,” Dally said, turning to look at him. “What is it?”

“Be there for him,” Soda said, his voice sad and soft as he looked at Dallas. “Hold him when he can’t calm down. Make him dinner when he’s trapped somewhere else. Turn of the lights and hold him and remind him you’re gonna protect him no matter what.”

It sounded so simple. But Dally knew it would be anything but. He’d been with Johnny long enough to know that. He swallowed hard, turning to look at Soda. “How d’you know that’ll work?”

Soda shook his head. “I don’t. But I know what it’s like to have someone you care about with anxiety and not know what to do. And...yeah, Pony’s anxiety was never as bad as Johnny’s, but...I think if you just...stopped worryin’ about what’ll work and what won’t things might be a little easier.”

“That sounds so naive,” Dally said bitterly, unable to stop himself.

Soda shrugged. “Maybe it is. But you ain’t gonna know until you try.”

Dallas looked at Soda, then looked back at Johnny, still sleeping on the couch, his small body moving up and down in time with his breathing.

He still didn’t think what Soda said would work. He still thought the odds of Johnny feeling better with him just holding him when he began to panic or spiral down into the dark recesses of his mind would be frustratingly disastrous at best. But he also thought Soda was right.

It wouldn’t hurt to try.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay i posted somethin' two days in a row like usual!! pray for me that i'll be able to get out the next chapter of my big fic by tomorrow like normal.


	14. Thundering and Lightning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny is scared of everything, but the gang helps him deal with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again this was not supposed to take this long, but only eight more chapters and this fic will be finished!!

Johnny knew it was going to be a bad night when he woke up that morning and looked out the window. The sky was gray, clouds circling around each other, the wind blowing the tress with more force than usual, even for summer. The clouds were thick and dark enough that it turned noon the color of dusk and by the time night fell, everything was pitch black. When the thunder started rumbling, he started shaking. It was low rumbles at first, things he could ignore, but as the storm got closer and the rain started, the thunder got louder too. Soon he was rocking on the couch, holding himself, whimpering, humming to himself, trying to block out the sound, but it was not enough.

He was at the Curtis’s house. He and Dallas always went there during the day. It was easier for Dallas to take care of him when there were other people there to help. The thought alone made him feel guilty. He’d been a handful before Ponyboy had died, panicking over just about everything. But after Pony’s death, everything had gotten worse. Now he couldn’t even hear thunder or any loud noise at all without being sent into hysterics. And the worst part was, Sodapop and Darry didn’t feel that way. It was their brother that had died and yet it was him that was the most negatively affected.

It just didn’t seem right or fair.

It made him hate himself more than he ever had.

The thunder rumbled again, a little louder, a little closer and Johnny jumped, letting out a soft whimpering moan, his eyes flicking up to the ceiling as he did so. He could feel the eyes of the rest of the gang on him as he sat there, shaking, rocking, whimpering, hating himself for how weak he was. No one else was like this. No one else was even close. Not even Dallas and he’d seen plenty of people die when he was in New York. He’d probably seen more people die than anyone here and he’d never ended up this way. So why was it only he, Johnny, who was like this? What was so broken in him that made him behave this way, but no one else did? He didn’t understand it. It didn’t make sense to him and he hated every single second of it.

“Johnnycake?”

The voice was soft and made him look up from the floor he hadn’t really been seeing anyway.

Steve was kneeling down in front of him, looking worried. He didn’t touch him, but one hand hovered over his knee. He tried to give Johnny a small smile. “You okay, kid?” He spoke in a quiet, gentle voice, not wanting to scare Johnny more than he already was.

Johnny thought about nodding, thought about lying, feeling guilty for bringing down the whole gang yet again. He knew they were all staring at him. He didn’t have to look around to know that. He didn’t want them to worry more. But at the same time, he knew nothing would be solved if he did that. So he took a shuddering breath, squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and then shook his head, his eyes flicking away from Steve again as he did so.

“You wanna talk about it?” Steve went on, his voice still quiet and gentle, tilting his head slightly, trying to get Johnny to look at him again.

Johnny shrugged, unable to do anything different. A part of him did want to talk about it, but a much larger part of him didn’t want to make things harder for everyone than they already were. He knew that he wasn’t the only one who was suffering from Ponyboy’s death. But it did always seem he was the only one comforted for it, since he was the only one that seemed to be outright damaged by it.

“It ain’t gonna get better if you don’t talk about it, Johnnycake,” Steve said, his voice still quiet.

Johnny looked at him this time, opening his mouth to speak. But then the loudest crack of thunder yet broke over the house and he jumped nearly a foot in the air, clapping his hands over his ears as he did so, squeezing his eyes shut, rocking back and forth as he let out another whimpering moan. It was so loud. Loud as a gunshot. Loud as the gunshot that killed Ponyboy.

 _No, no, no, no, no,_ he thought, the memories starting to creep in upon him. His breath started to come in short, desperate gasps. He could hear himself still whimpering, still moaning, still trying to do everything he could to in some small way to keep himself from becoming immersed in the memories of the night that had ruined him forever.

“Why don’t we put on some music?” Steve said quietly, placing a tentative hand on Johnny’s knee. “We can turn it up really loud and drown out the thunder, alright?”

Johnny didn’t know if that would help. He didn’t know if it was even a good idea. But it was also something that hadn’t been tried before and he figured it was worth a shot. He nodded.

He didn’t see it happen, but Steve moved away. A moment later the radio came on, blaring loud, exciting music. Music that you could dance to. He opened his eyes, pulling his hands away from his ears and saw Steve dancing near the radio. The gang was looking at Steve now, not Johnny. Soda laughed at him, watching him dance. Darry was grinning too. Johnny smiled tentatively, thinking that if they could laugh and smile with their brother dead, maybe he could too.

“Dance with me, Soda!” Steve said, doing a jig across the room before he grabbed Soda by the hand and pulled him into the middle of the living room, dancing with him like they were a bar in the twenties doing some sort of swing dance.

Two-Bit, who had been sitting next to Johnny on the couch and drinking, grinned at them, raising his beer and downing another long swallow before he got up and said, “You can dance with me, Darry.” Darry protested as Two-Bit dragged him into the middle of the living room as well, but once he was there, he danced as enthusiastically as Soda and Steve did.

The thunder still rumbled and the rain still pounded the roof, but no one heard it. Not even Johnny who was grinning by now, grinning more than he had in a long time. And when Dallas came into the house, confused by what was going on, he was the one that got up and pulled him onto what had become the dance floor, letting him throw him around the way Steve was with Soda and Darry was with Two-Bit. Dallas was confused at first, but he smiled quickly, simply happy to Johnny so happy.

None of them mentioned that now that there were only six of them in the gang, they had enough dance partners and didn’t have to take turns. No one mentioned the fact there were only six of them at all. In fact, in that moment it seemed that they had forgotten about the tragedy of the last few months and were, for the first time in a great long while, immersing themselves in the moment, instead of dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.

They all seemed to know it wouldn’t last, but that didn’t seem to matter.

All that mattered was right now. And that was all that should matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pray for me that i'll be able to get more writin' out in a timely manner rip. also this chapter is the calm before the storm of the last few chapters so prepare for that.


	15. An Addictive Accident

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dally gets Johnny some anxiety meds from Buck...at least that's what he thought they were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stuff is gonna go from zero to sixty REAL quick from here y'all!!!

It had been an accident. Dally knew that. Everyone knew that. But that didn’t make any of this any easier. And it didn’t make him any less angry at Buck for not knowing what was going on in the first place. Buck worked with drugs on a regular basis. It was one of the reasons his bar was so full and the people lurking outside so greedy: Buck knew his drugs. And no matter what Buck said or how many times he tried to apologize, Dally knew there would always be a small part of him that didn’t believe Buck didn’t know what he was doing when he gave Dallas the wrong set of pills.

What had happened was this:

Johnny’s anxiety kept getting worse. Dally wasn’t even sure it could be classified really as anxiety anymore. It was just panic 24/7/365 and no one knew how to fix it. Sure, there were times they could calm him down, times they could even make him smile or laugh or be happy. But they never lasted. Not even for very long. Not even for a few hours. Within minutes, he’d be back to the way he’d been since Ponyboy’s death and it would be like none of the good stuff had happened at all.

So Dallas went to Buck, begging for anxiety meds. He knew they existed. He also knew there was no way he was going to take Johnny to a doctor and ask them for them. The greasers were discriminated against in every part of Tulsa. That included by medical professionals. What was more likely to happen was the doctor would pretend to hear them out and then would calmly explain why he couldn’t give them what they needed. Dallas had seen that happen many a time before with his mother when she needed medication when she was still alive. He wasn’t going to put Johnny through that sort of disappointment too. Not when he was already going through so much.

So he went to Buck. And Buck told him exactly what he wanted to hear: he knew exactly what would help Johnny and he knew exactly where to get it. It wouldn’t be easy and it most certainly wouldn’t be cheap, but it could happen and, for Dally, that was all that mattered.

Any small way he could help Johnny, could make things better, was good enough for him.

So Dallas waited. Patiently. For a week. Waited for Buck to get him the drugs, stopping by almost every day to see if they arrived. Finally they did. Dally paid him, Buck gave him the small bottle of pills swiped from someone’s long since dead mother, and Dally went on his way, thanking him as he left. Everything seemed to be going according to plan. Even for the first few days of Johnny taking the meds, everything seemed fine.

But it wasn’t.

It so very much wasn’t.

It took three days before Dally realized what exactly was going on. He was more calmed down, less likely to break down and start screaming, more likely to smile, but he was twitching, jumpy. And not only that...he seemed to enjoy taking his pills. Maybe a little too much. It all seemed familiar to Dallas, but he couldn’t remember what of, until he was lying awake one night, smoking a cigarette and staring at the ceiling and he realized: Johnny seemed strung out.

He got up immediately, leaving his cigarette in the ashtray on the nightstand by the bed he and Johnny shared. He grabbed the drugs, looking at them. They weren’t in a labeled bottle. Whatever label had once been there had been torn off. He ran to the bathroom, flipping on the lights and dumping a handful of the pills into his hand, examining them. They appeared innocuous, but there were no serial numbers on them, nothing to identify them as doctor made medications.

His heart pounded. He didn’t know what it was Buck had given him, but he did know it wasn’t anxiety meds. And now, whatever this was, Johnny was now addicted to it.

As much as Dally wanted to, as much as every instinct right then told him to, he didn’t flush the pills down the toilet. He didn’t know if going off it cold turkey would kill Johnny or make things worse. So he dressed quickly, left Johnny a note telling him where he’d gone, and headed to Buck’s, the bottle of pills clutched in his hand, which made a tight fist.

It was unsurprising that Buck’s place still blared music he could hear from four blocks away. The place never really shut down. And Dally wasn’t even sure Buck ever slept. He got enough drugs that he probably had something that prevented him from sleeping as well. Dally burst through the door and began scanning the first floor of the bar, looking for the man. When he found him he crossed the room in only a handful of strides.

“We need to talk,” he said, his voice taking on the low, dangerous tone it did when he was angry. His teeth were gritted as tightly as his fists were clenched.

Buck had been speaking to someone else, but he must have seen something in Dally’s face and nodded, telling the person he was speaking with that he’d finish their conversation later before he turned to Dallas and said, “What’s up?”

“These ain’t anxiety meds,” he said, holding up the bottle of pills.

Buck drew his brows together. “What are you talkin’ about?”

“I checked em,” he said, his voice rising as he got angrier, certain this had been done on purpose. “There ain’t no serial numbers on em and Johnny’s been actin’ real weird the last few days. I dunno what they are, Buck, but they ain’t anxiety meds. They’re somethin’ else. You gave me fuckin’ hard drugs. And you’re gonna tell me what they are or I’m gonna tear this place apart.”

Buck looked alarmed, able to tell from Dally’s face and voice alone that he meant every word of what he said. “Look, man, I don’t know what they are either if they ain’t anxiety meds!” He spoke quickly, holding his hands up in a don’t-shoot-the-messenger act of surrender. “I just asked someone if they had anythin’ for bad anxiety and they gave me those.”

“Really?” Dally said, not believing a word of it. “You’re gonna tell me you have no idea what these are when ya spend every day around drugs? Really, Buck? What kinda bullshit is that?”

“We can find out what they are,” Buck said. “If-if I take some, I can tell ya what they are.”

Dally paused. He wasn’t sure if that was a good idea. Maybe that had been the plan all along: get Johnny addicted and when Dally found out, give the remaining drugs to Buck and watch Johnny die or just go through a painful withdrawal process...just for shits and giggles. He didn’t know who might find that funny, but he was sure those people existed.

However, from the look on Buck’s face, he could tell that wasn’t really what was going on here. He still didn’t truly believe Buck didn’t know what the drugs were, but he gave a curt nod and followed Buck from the main floor of the bar to the upstairs bedrooms.

Buck took the pill silently. Then sat with Dallas, both of them having a cigarette, while they waited for...whatever it was to kick in. Once it did, Buck nodded and said, “It’s ecstasy, man. The dude who gave me these gave your boy ecstasy. No wonder he’s addicted after what he’s been through.”

Dally didn’t know much about ecstasy. He didn’t really do drugs as a general rule. He mostly drank and smoked. Sometimes he smoked pot with everyone else at Buck’s or whenever Soda got his hands on some of the good stuff, but other than that he steered clear of it. Too many things that could go wrong. Too many things he could get addicted to. However, he did know there was a reason the drug was called ecstasy and the minute Buck said it, he cursed under his breath.

No wonder Johnny was addicted was right.

He thanked Buck, his tone still curt, his lips still pressed into a thin line, his hands still clenched into fists, and left, taking the pills with him after asking – and Buck reassuring him no – if Johnny would die if he went cold turkey on the pills. He took the pills with him, only because he didn’t want Buck to have them, but he wasn’t going to give Johnny anymore. Feeding an addiction would only make it worse, only make it harder for him to come off of them.

And that began the withdrawal process.

When he explained to Johnny what had happened, Johnny was alarmed, then asked if he could still take the pills and when Dallas said no, Johnny exploded. He screamed, cried, ransacked the house, looking for the small bottle that Dally had already flushed down the toilet. He beat at Dally’s chest with his tiny fists, screaming horrible things at him that Dally could barely understand over the sound of his shrieks. But he didn’t hate him for it.

He hated whoever had done this to him to begin with.

He hated the Socs for killing Ponyboy and making this necessary in the first place.

He hated Buck for either not checking the pills first or just downright pretending not to know what he was handing to him when he asked for them.

He didn’t blame Johnny for it. He couldn’t. None of this was his fault. Not really.

Eventually, Johnny calmed down. He slumped against Dally’s chest, sobbing, and as his sobs turned into hiccuping gasps, he said in a voice so quiet Dally almost wasn’t sure he’d spoken at first, “Now I gotta go back to hurtin’ all the time again, huh?”

Dally didn’t know how to reply to that and the words themselves broke his heart. He really couldn’t argue with what Johnny had said, so he bit his lip, stared at the ceiling, blinking back tears and cursing every god he could think of as he said, “Yeah.”

Johnny began to cry again. This time his body just shook and he didn’t make a sound, except to say in the smallest of voices, “I wanna die.”

Dally held him tighter, told him not to say things like that, did everything he could to reassure him, but the truth was, he understood exactly how Johnny felt.

He wanted to die too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gettin' closeta the end of this fic!! only like...i think six or seven more chapters and it'll be over!! <3


	16. Deluded Dinners and Hallucinatory Ideas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny's condition deteriorates even more and he starts hallucinating and stops eating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have been lookin' forwards to writing this since i was given the idea. i didn't want to make it more than one chapter though, so i hope this is good. there are only 4-5 chapters left of this fic!! i hope y'all enjoy what's left!!
> 
> also i have been extremely sick the last week and a half, which is why i haven't been postin' stuff. i am finally now startin'ta get better, so i am hopin' i will get more stuff out the next few days.

It started small. Just flashes of color at first, things Johnny knew that he hadn’t really seen, things that were very easy to ignore. It didn’t bother him. Not really, anyway. After all that had been happening to him mentally and emotionally the last few months since Ponyboy’s death, this was the least of his worries. It didn’t cause him panic or anxiety. It didn’t impede his life in anyway. He could ignore it.

At first.

Then everything changed.

The flashes stopped being flashes. They became visions. He would turn his head and instead of seeing a vague, unrecognizable humanoid shape, he would see Ponyboy, seemingly in the flesh, standing in the corner of the room he was in, standing in an aisle at the grocery store, standing across the street when he walked down the sidewalk. It was unsettling. It was startling. It made his hands shake and his eyes blank and his legs wobble when he tried to stand. But he could still mostly ignore it. He could still remind himself it wasn’t there, pass it off as not enough sleep or too much. Even when the vision leered at him, grinning in a way that he could only explain to himself or anyone else as evil.

Then the visions started speaking.

And that made everything so, so much worse.

_It’s your fault that I’m like this now._

_It’s your fault that I died._

_You deserve what’s happening to you._

_You don’t deserve to be happy ever again._

Of all the things Johnny thought a hallucination might do, he had never thought it would speak to him. And even if he had thought it would, he had never thought that it would say the things it was saying. But then again he didn’t know very much about hallucinations to begin with. He’d thought you had to have a preexisting condition for them to come on. Or get little to no sleep – something that definitely wasn’t happening with him; if anything he was sleeping too much. But that didn’t seem to be the truth. And while, logically, he knew that none of it was real, that he was just seeing things, there was a part of him that wondered if this was less a hallucination and more a ghost, come back from the grave to haunt and torment him for the exact reasons it was saying.

And really...how hard was that to believe?

It wasn’t like what the hallucination or vision or ghost or whatever it was happened to be wrong. If anything, it was exactly right. It _was_ his fault that Ponyboy had died. He’d watched the Socs come to the park, watched their leader pull out that gun, watched him pull the trigger, and he had done nothing at all to stop it. He’d just watched it all happen. He _didn’t_ deserve to be happy ever again after what he’d done. And he _did_ deserve what was happening to him.

The worst hallucinations were when he was sitting and eating with the Curtis family or anyone really. He would sit there, trying to put food into his mouth and the hallucination would scream at him things he was already thinking himself.

_How dare you sit there and act like you belong?! You’re a murderer! As guilty as the Socs that killed me and you know it! You don’t deserve food or goodness or acceptance or anything! How can you think that you deserve to call yourself my brothers’ friend?! How can you think you deserve to have any sort of good life with Dallas?! He’d a hood alright, but he’s never done anything anywhere near as bad as what you have! You’re disgusting! You’re worthless! You make me sick!_

It didn’t matter the hallucination spoke like his parents, sounding, really, nothing like Ponyboy with none of his vocal inflections or speech patterns. It only mattered that the vision had his face, looked exactly like him down to the exact clothes he’d worn the day he’d died. Sometimes he even had a bullet wound between his eyes. Sometimes that wound would bleed and Ponyboy would point to it, while he laughed, a horrible sound that made Johnny cover his ears, shut his eyes as tight as they would go, and hum to himself, trying desperately to drown out the noise.

He stopped doing this when he realized that didn’t work and all it accomplished was making everyone worry, which the vision had firmly established was something he didn’t deserve anyway.

At first, he thought he had to wait the hallucinations out, that eventually they would go away and everything would go back to the way it had been before. Before wasn’t good, not by anyone’s standards, including his own, but it was better than now and, at this point, Johnny was willing to take whatever relief from pain he could get.

But that didn’t happen. If anything it only got worse.

Johnny found that if he did what the hallucination wanted him to do, it would go away for a few hours, sometimes even a few days. If he did one thing it disapproved of, it would return with full force and twice as vindictive than it had been before its disappearance, shrieking at him so loud that his ears rang and his jaw hurt from how hard he clenched it, trying to ignore the shouts.

So he stopped eating. The vision didn’t seem to like it when he did that. It taught him tips get out of eating and to avoid suspicion too. It allowed him to eat a little, but never enough to be satisfied and never foods that he actually liked. The only time this changed was when Darry cooked for him and even then it reminded him that if Darry was going to cook for him, he had to eat, since he had put Darry in the deep depression the oldest Curtis brother had fallen into a bottle as deep as Dally’s that he couldn’t seem to climb out of anymore to escape.

He slept as little as possible, only the four or five hours the vision told him he could sleep. He spent the nights awake, sitting in the living room of whatever house, awake, staring at the walls, watching the shadows climb them and when he wasn’t doing that, he spent hours walking around the neighborhood at night, the hallucination laughing every time he jumped at sounds or shadows.

He spent hours locked in the bathroom, drawing on his skin with the sharpest knives he could find, watching as the blood bubbled up and stained every pair of jeans he owned. It surprised him the vision was okay with him doing this, since the pain helped him and made him feel better, unlike everything else it wanted him to do.

And that wasn’t all it made him do.

He had to spend hours at the park Ponyboy died, staring at the grass that he knew was no longer bloodstained, but when Johnny was there it was always deep red, soaked in crimson. He would kneel in it, without the hallucination even telling him to and watch as the blood covered his hands. When he got home, he would wash them until they were red and dry and raw and really truly covered in blood from how badly the skin was cracked and they were bleeding, but it never got rid of the blood that had been there when he got home from the park.

If anyone asked him why he did the things he did, he couldn’t answer.

The vision had even taken his voice from him.

Sometimes what the vision wanted didn’t make sense. It would tell him to do one thing, which would only result in everyone worrying about him, something it seemed to hate more than anything else. And if he didn’t do what the vision wanted, even knowing it would result in worry for everyone else, it would torment him even worse. And yet it would torment him even worse than that if he made anyone worry about him.

He was stuck between a rock and a hard place where everything was broken and nothing made any sort of sense anymore and he didn’t know how to fix it or make it better.

Johnny felt more lost than ever. He wanted all of this to end, but seemed this was just his life now. He wanted to kill himself, just to make it stop, but, as though predicting this might be his line of thinking, everyone made sure he was constantly watched. No one allowed him to be alone anymore. They didn’t even allow him to take showers with the door closed anymore and someone stood there, calling out to him the whole time to make sure nothing happened.

 _I just wanna die,_ he thought miserably, sobbing one night as he staggered through the neighborhood, chain smoking and exhausted. _Please just let me die._

The hallucination only laughed.

_You really think you deserve the easy way out of this, you coward? You’re going to suffer like everyone else is suffering because of you and maybe, just maybe, once you understand exactly what you have done, I’ll let you die._

Johnny took a sharp breath, ready to scream, but the vision seemed prepared for this.

_Don’t you fucking dare. Don’t you fucking dare. Shut up and keep walking._

Johnny let out the breath in a sharp hiss and walked faster. He had to hurt, walk so fast he got home sore. If he didn’t hurt, the vision would only scream at him later.

* * *

Everyone was worried about Johnny. Of course, they had been for a while, so this was nothing new, except now whatever was going on now was ten times worse than anything that had gone on before. Johnny wasn’t speaking. And while none of them knew about him not sleeping, they knew he was constantly hurting himself and barely eating. They saw how thin he was getting. However, none of them realized just how bad it was until Soda saw him in the shower one day, watching him like they all did in shifts now to make sure that he didn’t try to kill himself while they weren’t paying attention, so they made they always were.

“I can see his spine when he showers,” Soda said quietly to Darry while Darry made dinner one night. “I can see his ribs when he bends over. And all the bones in his hands. And his collarbones. It’s worse when there’s shadows...you can see the hollow of his neck way too well. You can see his wrist bones too well. And his thighs...they still touch, but not when he bends his legs when he sit down.”

Darry stood, stirring the soup he was making, a bottle of beer on the counter. His lips were pressed into a thin, worried line, and he took a long swig of his alcohol once Soda finished speaking. He turned to him then, looking haggard and broken in a way that Soda had never seen his brother look before. Not when their parents had died, not even when Ponyboy had died. This was something else. Something had been broken in him and he didn’t know how he hadn’t seen it before, but he did know it was because of what was happening to Johnny. And slowly, Soda understood why: somehow, Darry had found a way to blame himself for it. Just like they all had.

“We gotta help him,” Darry said turning back to the soup, letting out a breath that smelled like the beer he’d been drinking. “Something really bad is gonna happen if we don’t.”

“I know,” Soda replied, his voice still quiet as he glanced towards the living room where Dally, Two-Bit, and Steve were silently watching cartoons, each of them looking haunted in their own way. “But how? What can we do to fix this when he won’t even talk to us?”

The brothers were silent for a long time, saying nothing because neither one of them had an answer to the question everyone in that living room wanted to ask just as much as they were now. Soda took a step towards the living room, looking at Johnny. How much longer could his already weak body take everything that was happening to it and his mind before it finally gave out altogether?

Finally, Darry let out another sigh, his shoulders drooping and though Soda could no longer see his face from this angle, he heard the tears in his voice as he said, “I don’t know, Soda. I really don’t.”

They didn’t say anything else after that, but what Johnny didn’t know was that all of the rest of the gang felt as lost and stuck as he did.

They were all stuck between a rock and a hard place and none of them knew how to get out from under it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really hope y'all enjoyed this. i have another idea that's sorta similar to this once i finish this fic about dallas gettin' locked in a mental hospital after johnny dies and how he deals with it, seein' johnny's ghost and all durin' that time. it's gonna be sad tho. this one is at least gonna have a happy endin'.


	17. Sleeping Bears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny and Dally go to the drive-in, but it's too soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i say this every time i post anythin’ anymore, but i’v e had a really stressful last few days, so that’s why this took forever fuckin’ rip. 
> 
> also this was originally a request, but it's been a hot minute since i originally got the request, so i can't remember who exactly sent it in rip.

Later when Dally was alone in his room at Buck’s instead of at home because he couldn’t stand to be there, pounding his fist into the wall, he would realize he should’ve known from the very beginning this was how things were going to turn out. Johnny was still in a fragile state of mind. Hell, everything about him was fragile. What had honestly made Dallas think that taking him out was a good idea?

That had been the original idea. Go to the drive-in. Have a nice time. And it had seemed like a good one. It was the drive-in. And though Johnny had freaked out the last time they were there cause he’d seen the Socs, Dallas was certain that even if that did happen again, he would be able to handle it. They’d been through a lot worse together in the last few days alone. What could one night do?

And that had been is naivety.

He really had believed every word of that train of thought.

So they’d gone out.

Dally had woken Johnny up near dusk. Johnny slept weird hours now and no one questioned it, even though he and Dallas still spend most of their time at the Curtis’s rather than their own home, so this meant that everyone had to be quiet almost always when going in and out of the house, since Johnny slept in the living room. Darry had even put blankets up over the windows to make the room darker, so Johnny would have an easier time sleeping.

They’d gotten dressed, Dally helping Johnny, since he shook too much now to get dressed on his own, trying not to see how thin he looked now. He wasn’t so thin that he had to go to the hospital for it, thank god, but he was thin enough that Dally pressed his lips into a thin line and tried not to shake himself when he saw him, wondering how much longer it would be until he _did_ have to be hospitalized for how small he had become.

Once they were both dressed and Dally made sure _he_ had Johnny’s switchblade in his pocket, not the other way aorund – he didn’t want any accidents happening on what was supposed to be a nice evening out to the drive-in – they waved goodbye to Darry and Soda, who couldn’t come along cause they had work in the morning, and headed for the drive-in. They’d asked Steve, and Two-Bit if they wanted to come along as well and, while Two-Bit had promised he would meet them there, having nothing better to do himself, Steve also had work the next morning.

Neither of them mentioned Ponyboy.

They walked to the drive-in, mostly because Dally didn’t have a car. And, as he walked too close to Johnny, ready to push him behind him at the first sign of trouble or danger, he wished he did. It would be so much easier if he had a car, so many fewer variables to worry about. It would be a much more controlled environment, much easier to protect Johnny in and keep him away from anyone who might even think about hurting him or startling him.

But he didn’t have a car.

All he had was a switchblade that wasn’t even his in his pocket and his nerves on high alert.

The drive-in was crowded and Dally knew from the minute they entered – legally this time, he didn’t know what would happen to Johnny if they were caught crawling through the hole in the fence – that this wasn’t good. There were too many people, too many bad things that could happen because of those people. His jaw immediately clenched, feeling more on edge than he already did.

Johnny seemed to notice the danger too and his steps stuttered for a moment as they headed towards the chairs near the concession stand, his eyes widening, his breath coming in quick gasps.

“Johnny,” Dally said quietly, touching his wrist – his hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his denim jacket. “Johnny, it’s okay. I’m here. It’s okay.”

It took a moment, but Johnny calmed down as much as he could and they continued walking.

Two-Bit was already there, a pack of beer hidden under his seat and one in a paper bag in his hand. He waved to them as they approached and patted the seats on either side of him. “Saved y’all seats,” he said unnecessarily as he scooted over one so Johnny and Dallas could sit next to each other. “Brought some booze too. Thought it might calm everybody down.”

He reached under the seat that Johnny was now sitting on and grabbed a beer, cracking it open, not seeming to care who saw, before handing it to Dallas. Dally took it and drank more of it than he meant to, both wanting to calm down and not dull his senses so much that he wouldn’t be able to protect Johnny if something bad happened.

To both Dally’s and Two-Bit’s surprise, Johnny took a beer too when Two-Bit offered him one. They were even more surprised when he drank half of it right off. Neither of them mentioned how angry Darry would be if he knew that they were here giving the kid beer. There was a reason Johnny didn’t drink and it really wasn’t his choice. Bad things happened when Johnny drank.

 _Take it away now_ , something told him. _Take the alcohol away now before one of those bad things happens and you can’t stop it._

But Dally ignored the voice and only drank more.

He was going to have a good time tonight if it were the last thing he ever did.

And for the first movie, it seemed that was true. Johnny didn’t smile exactly, but he didn’t panic or freak out or cry either. He even laughed a few times at the things Two-Bit said and did. And slowly, slowly Dally began to relax, began to allow himself to believe that maybe they _could_ have one night out where nothing went wrong and he didn’t have to worry.

But then the second movie started and it wasn’t even two minutes into the movie that something happened that ruined not only the night but the next week and a half.

Someone touched Johnny’s shoulder.

They didn’t mean to upset him, Dally later realized. It was an accident. A simple accident that the assailant didn’t realize was going to cause any sort of disruption.

But it did. And that was enough.

The man touched Johnny’s shoulder because he wanted to know if they’d seen someone, but Dally knew from the minute it happened it was the wrong move.

Johnny froze, his face went white and Dally and Two-Bit hadn’t even finished turning to the guy when Johnny spun around and hit the guy in the face as hard as he could. Dally heard a sickening crunch that made him wince and realize that Johnny had hit the guy so hard he broke his nose.

“What the fuck?!” the guy yelled.

“I’m calling the cops!” said someone else. The voice was feminine, so Dally figured it had to be the guy’s girlfriend, but he really wasn’t paying attention to those people anymore. His entire focus was now on Johnny, who had stood to deliver the punch, but his legs had buckled immediately after and now he was sitting on the ground, rocking back and forth and whimpering.

Dally knelt down in front of him, reaching a hand out to touch him, but stopping just short of him, not wanting to get his nose broken too. “Johnnycake?” he said in a quiet voice. “What happened? It’s just me. It’s Dallas. It’s okay, alright? It’s okay. Nothin’s gonna hurt ya.”

“Yeah, right!” the guy yelled. “He broke my nose!”

“It’s my fault, my fault, my fault, my fault!” Johnny was whimpering over and over again.

A crowd was gathering, not around them exactly, but near them. Dally didn’t look at them, he only had eyes for Johnny, but he could hear Two-Bit spitting angry words at them, telling them to stay back, asking them what they were looking at and Dally wished for once that someone could understand Johnny wasn’t a bad person, he wasn’t angry or mean or cruel. He was just traumatized.

He heard sirens in the distance and he cursed the stupid guy and his girlfriend for calling the cops. Nothing good could come of this. Nothing at all.

And he was right.

The cops arrived, pushing through the crowd of people, demanding they make way, and Dally tried to warn them, tried to stop them, he really did, but they didn’t listen to him. They just pushed him out of the way and one of them they made the same mistake the guy with the broken nose just had: they touched Johnny on the shoulder.

Johnny, who had been in a near catatonic state up until that point, flew into a wild rage. He slapped the cop’s hand away and then lunged at him, shrieking wildly. Dally tried to get in front of him, tried to catch him before he hurt anyone, but the cops were holding him back now too and no matter how much he strained against them, no matter how much he screamed, they didn’t let him go.

Dally watched in shock, unable to do a thing, as Johnny knocked out one cop, then sunk his fist into the stomach of another. It wasn’t until one of the paramedics from the ambulance that had also been called stuck a needle into his neck and he dropped to the ground unconscious that he finally stopped. But by this point, Dally’s voice was hoarse from yelling, his entire body was shaking and when the cop’s grip slackened for just a moment, he pulled away and ran to Johnny.

“Johnny?” he said, choking on dry tears. “Johnny?”

He immediately felt for a pulse and when he found it, his entire body relaxed in relief.

The paramedics pushed himself aside and began to load him onto a gurney. He was so limp and pale that he looked dead and Dally kept having to remind himself of the pulse he’d found, of Johnny’s slowly rising and falling chest, as he watched them do it.

Finally, he realized what was happening and he asked, “What’re you takin’ him for?”

“He attacked a civilian and a cop and the only way we stopped him was by sedating him,” one of the paramedics stated dryly. “He has to be committed.”

“Committed?!” Dally asked incredulously. “You mean like in a mental ward?! Are you fuckin’ insane?! That’s just gonna make him worse!”

He tried to lunge at the paramedic, ready to beat him and all the cops as bloody as Johnny had tried to, but Two-Bit held him back. “You can’t help Johnny if you’re in jail, man,” he said quietly and that made the fight fall out of Dallas instantly. Two-Bit was right.

Dally watched, anxiety and self-hatred flowing through him as surely as his own blood as he watched the ambulance take Johnny away. It wasn’t until the ambulance turned a corner and no one could see it anymore that he finally let Two-Bit lead him out of the drive-in and back towards the Curtis’s house, neither of them speaking the entire way there.

Darry and Soda were shocked to see them back so soon.

“Where’s Johnny?” Darry asked immediately.

Dally didn’t even reply. He collapsed onto the couch, his head in his hands, silent tears falling from his eyes onto the floor. It stunned everyone so much to see Dallas Winston cry that the entire room was silent for a very long time before Two-Bit finally replied, telling them what happened.

Darry and Soda asked questions about how the whole things started, why the cops were called in the first place, and if any of them knew what was going to happen next. Two-Bit answered every question to the best of his ability. Occasionally, one of them tried to ask Dally a question, but when it became apparent he wasn’t really capable of answering them they stopped.

Dally was trapped in his thoughts, his mind cycling through the same three thoughts over and over again and it went like this.

The first thought was that he never should’ve taken Johnny out to begin with. He should’ve known better. He should’ve known what was going to happen. After all, how could he think that someone who’s mental state was slowly deteriorating was going to do any good in a public setting like that? How could he possibly have been so naive as to believe that he could handle whatever was going to happen? The last drive-in visit had been weeks ago. So much had changed since then.

The second thought was that he shouldn’t have had anything to drive. It dulled his senses and made him less alert, less able to notice what was going on in the world around him. If he hadn’t drank, he would’ve seen that man’s hand coming before he actually touched Johnny. He would’ve heard him lean forward in his chair, he would’ve heard him clear his throat before he began to speak, he would’ve heard any of the thousand signals that would’ve told him what was going to happen before it actually did and then Johnny would be next to him right now.

The third thought was that he shouldn’t have let Johnny drink. There was a reason Johnny wasn’t allowed by the gang at large to drink. Every time he did something horrible happened. He hurt himself or he cried until he couldn’t breathe or he disappeared and the gang couldn’t find him for hours. It seemed now that hurting other people who touched him he didn’t see coming was now added to that list and Dally wanted to hurt himself for being so stupid.

There were other thoughts too like he should’ve beat the cops and paramedics up anyway (then maybe he’d be sent to the same place Johnny was and he could protect him there), that he should’ve tried harder to keep the cops from touching Johnny to begin with, that he should’ve insisted on riding in the ambulance with Johnny to the hospital, but those three thoughts were the main ones, the ones his mind always cycled back to no matter what.

Darry and Soda were still talking to Two-Bit about what happened and were now discussing maybe trying to visit Johnny the next day, but Dally couldn’t take it anymore. He stood quickly and said, his words slurring over one another, “’M goin’ta Buck’s.”

He wasn’t sure if they said anything in response. He left too fast.

The walk to Buck’s seemed to take twice as long as it usually did.

The thoughts continued to cycle in his head. He tried running so fast he felt like his lungs were going to burst and his legs were going to fall off, but that didn’t help. The thoughts didn’t even get quieter and the exercise only made him sweaty and tired.

He walked into Buck’s without knocking and headed for his usual room without saying anything. Buck didn’t even bother to ask what was wrong. He’d long since learned not to ask Dally what was wrong when he looked as damaged as he did now.

Dally slammed the door shut, threw off his jacket and went to the nearest wall and punched it until there was a knuckle-shaped hole in the plaster and his own knuckles were bruised and bloody. Then he screamed and screamed until his voice were hoarse, not caring who heard him, not caring that his reputation was probably ruined now.

 _You should’ve known,_ the voice from before whispered in his head. _You should’ve known that something like this was going to happen from the minute you had this idea._

Dallas didn’t even realize he was sobbing, didn’t realize either that he’d fallen to his knees and his forehead was pressed against the wall, until he blinked and tears fell from his eyes onto his knees.

He couldn’t fix this, not any of it. And it was all his fault too. He knew that now. It was all his fault and the worst part was that though everything was falling apart faster and faster and faster, he didn’t know how to stop it or make any of it better.

He wasn’t sure he ever would be able to ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic is almost done y'all!! i have two other ficlets about the length of this one i wanna write when i'm done with this one. i think i'm gonna write em both at the same time. we'll see. the first one was originally gonna be a huge full length fic, but i realized i don't have enough ideas for it to be, so it'll just be this length.
> 
> in case you're wonderin' what they are:  
> \- institutions of the damned: dallas doesn't die when he gets shot at after johnny's death. he just gets wounded and is sent to a mental hospital for pointing a gun at the cops. while there, he sees johnny's ghost and goes through more in the four white walls of his hospital room than he ever thought possible.  
> \- a silent voice: johnny is kidnapped by the socs and held and tortured for a month. dally finally finds him, but when he does, johnny can no longer speak because of the trauma he endured during his kidnapping. the story is about him healing and feeling safe again. also there's gonna be jally.


	18. Final Hospitalization

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny is hospitalize after he attacks someone at the drive-in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay!! i'm finally writin' a lot again now that i've finished red hands and white sheets!! there's only a few chapters left of this fic and i'm rly excitedta finish it for y'all!!

The first thing Johnny noticed when he woke up was the stark bright light that filled the room he was in. It was so bright that he closed his eyes immediately after opening them, allowing them to adjust to the brightness behind his lids before he slowly blinked them open again, still squinting to see. The room he was in was sterile and as white as the lights above him, making everything even more bright and unbearable than it might have been otherwise.

Still he kept his eyes open and looked around, trying to figure out where he was, but really it took only one sweep of the room to put two and two together. The whitewashed walls, the white tile floor, the bleached wooden wardrobe and desk pushed into different corners of the rooms, his small bed pressed up against one wall, covered in a pale blue blanket and bright white sheets.

He was in the hospital.

And, though he’d never been in it before, he was guessing it was the mental health ward.

At first, he couldn’t figure out why. What was he doing here? Had he finally snapped? Or had the gang simply decided they couldn’t collectively handle what he was going through anymore and handed him off to people they thought might be able to?

But even as he thought the last part he knew it wasn’t true.

He also knew that the first part was. And the memories of the drive-in the night before came back to him slowly in snippets of color and sound.

He remember going with Dallas. He remembered meeting Two-Bit near the concession stands. He remembered watching the first movie and passing Two-Bit’s beer back and forth between the three of them as they laughed at the characters on screen. He remembered the first movie ending. He remembered watching the screen go black.

He remembered the man’s hand on his shoulder.

He remembered the panic and anxiety that filled him the moment that had happened. He remembered turning around and hitting the man in the face as hard as he could. He remembered the police arriving and trying to talk to him.He remembered hitting them too.

The paramedics had arrived shortly after that and one of them had rushed at him with a needle.

He reached up with shaking fingers to his neck now and felt the bandage there.

They’d subdued him with the needle, knocking him out. He didn’t know what he had happened next. He’d been unconscious, but he was sure he could guess.

Most likely the paramedics had put him on a gurney and transferred him by ambulance to the hospital he was in now. Most likely the reason he was still here was because he had attacked a police officer and now was under some sort of seventy-two hour hold.

He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that.

On the one hand, he knew logically that being in the hospital was the best place for him. He knew how off the rails he was, even if he still could do virtually nothing to stop it, which, of course, was part of the reason why it was a good thing he was here to begin with. But on the other hand, he’d heard too many horror stories about mental hospitals to believe that they really helped people. And, truth be told, he was more afraid of them making him worse rather than relieved they might make him better.

He was still thinking about this when the door of his room opened and a middle aged woman with wrinkles around her mouth and curly blonde hair came in. She wore a nice plum colored jacket, a pale purple blouse underneath and black slacks. Her shoes clicked when she walked and when Johnny looked down, he saw she was wearing black boots with heels.

“Hello Johnny,” the woman said, pulling the chair out from his desk in the corner near the door and sitting in it. She held a yellow notepad and, as she sat down, crossed her legs and balanced it on her knee. She pulled a pen out of the front pocket of her jacket and clicked it open, ready to start writing down everything that was wrong with him. “How are you?”

Johnny sat up slowly, holding back a wince as all the blood rushed from his head. “Who are you?” he asked by way of greeting, though he was sure he could guess the answer to his own question.

“I’m Dr. Gyviezel,” the woman replied, smiling at him. “You know where you are, don’t you?”

Johnny nodded, swallowing hard, his hands starting to shake with the typical anxiety he felt twenty-four hours a day now. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “A hospital. A mental hospital.”

“Do you know why?”

He nodded again.

“Then you know I’m here to talk to you about it,” the doctor went on.

Silence. Johnny said nothing. He didn’t want to talk about that. There was nothing there to talk about. He’d hurt someone cause they touched him and he hated to be touched. He hated to be touched because he was afraid of people hurting him. He knew all the reasons behind his actions. He didn’t need some doctor to tell him what he already knew.

“Your friends tell me that you lost a close friend recently,” the doctor said, trying again after the silence stretched on for several minutes. “Would you rather talk about that?”

Johnny looked at her, about ready to shake his head and tell her that not only did he not want to talk about it, he couldn’t, but now there was someone else in the room and his eyes widened and his lips parted as he took a sharp breath inwards.

Ponyboy was standing behind her. He said nothing and he didn’t really have any sort of expression on his face, but after all he’d said and done to him these last few days, the sight of him was frightening and Johnny wondered what Ponyboy would say now. Would he tell him how worthless he was for allowing himself to get hospitalized? Would he remind him how disgusting he was for hurting someone else to begin with?

He didn’t want to find out.

And without really thinking about it, he shrieked, the lump forming in his throat breaking all at once and tears beginning to course down his cheeks as he did so, “Go away! Go away! Leave me alone! You’re not my friend! You’re not my friend anymore!”

The doctor seemed startled at first, but she seemed to realize pretty quickly it wasn’t her that he was speaking to. “Who do you see?” she asked, trying to get him to come back to himself.

But he wouldn’t. He didn’t want to talk to her. He wanted to talk to the apparition that would not leave him alone and had not left him alone for weeks now.

“All you do is hurt me! All you do is tell me no one cares about me! Stop it! I’ve suffered enough for lettin’ you die! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone!”

The doctor was opening the door now, calling orderlies, telling them Johnny needed to be subdued again. But Johnny didn’t notice. He was still screaming at the silent vision of Ponyboy, willing him to fade away, willing him to leave him alone for good at long last.

“Just go! Just go! Please! I can’t do this anymore!”

The orderlies rushed into the room. There were only two of them, but Johnny was so small and frail compared to them that they didn’t need anyone else. They pushed him down onto the bed and Johnny screamed, his mind pulled away from the image of Ponyboy, still standing in the corner, as strangers he didn’t know pushed him down, bringing memories he didn’t want to acknowledge to the forefront of his mind. He fought against them, even when they shoved the needle back into his neck, even as the world started to go black and his movements slowed.

His head turned and he still saw Ponyboy, standing in the corner, his face still expressionless.

 _Why?_ He thought, unable to move his lips or speak. It took too much effort now. _Why do you hate me so much? Why can’t you just let me suffer in peace now?_

But he got no answer. And within minutes, he’d sunk back into the blackness of oblivion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know darn well that mental hospitals were not this friendly in the 60s, but we're gonna play pretend cause i want this fic to have a happy endin'.


	19. Brotherly Visits in a Pure White Ward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soda visits Johnny while he's in the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rly glad i'm done with red hands and white sheets, so i can focus on some stuff i'm more excited about writin'. don't get me wrong, red hands and white sheets was fun to write, but it was more than time for it to be finished. i am gonna add more to it eventually, but for now it's finished. this fic is almost done!! only a few more chapters to go!!

t had been just over a week since Johnny was admitted into the hospital. He’d spent that week mostly in his room. Group therapy sessions, cafeteria visits, and just about anything that took him _out_ of his room set off his anxiety and made his hallucinations worse. And they were already twice as bad now that he was in the hospital and unable to be around Dallas or anyone else in the gang, who helped stop them or at the very least slow them down.

The gang had tried to visit him more than once, but every time they were turned away, being told by the doctors that Johnny needed to focus on himself right now and have no outside stimulation. The only reason he knew about this at all was because his therapist explained it to him when he’d once asked why they hadn’t visited him.

“They have been trying to visit you,” she’d told him. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to see them until you’ve stabilized a bit, had some time to focus on yourself instead of them.”

He’d thought about explaining to her that they were what kept him stable for so long to begin with, but he knew that wouldn’t do any good because he also knew what she meant when she said that he needed to focus on himself instead of them: he was too selfless. He disagreed. If anything, he thought he was the most selfish of all of them. But he knew she disagreed with that. She thought that the reason he hadn’t been able to get better before now was because he was too busy worrying about their feelings rather than his own.

Again, he only knew this because she’d told him when he’d asked her about it.

But he wasn’t sure he agreed with that. After all, if he’d been thinking of their feelings rather than his, wouldn’t he have been able to control his panic attacks and freak outs? Wouldn’t he be appearing to do much better than he was?

He wasn’t sure what she thought of that bit. He hadn’t asked her yet.

However, then one day he got a surprise. Sodapop came to visit.

He was allowed to visit Johnny right in his room, since Johnny still had problems leaving his room for too long and when the orderly who showed him in shut the door behind him, all Johnny could do was stare at him open mouthed for several moments. Finally, he closed his mouth, swallowing hard, as he asked, “How did you get in? I thought my therapist said she weren’t gonna let no one see me until I...stabilized or somethin’.”

Sodapop grinned and shrugged, sitting in the chair his therapist usually occupied as he said, “I told em I was your brother and our folks wantedta know how ya were doin’. They didn’t seemta question that, which I thought was funny, since we don’t look alike at all.” But Sodapop’s smile vanished as quickly as it had come and he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped in front of him as he asked, “You doin’ okay? They treatin’ you right in here and everythin’?”

Johnny nodded, looking away quickly. “Yeah,” he said, surprising himself with the answer. “They make me stay in here mosta the time though cause I...don’t like bein’ around other people. I’m okay with that though. People...scare me.”

Soda nodded thoughtfully, looking away. “You know, everyone misses ya, man,” he said quietly, looking at the ground. “We’re all worried about ya, but...we all think it’s best ya stay here until you’re better.” He looked guilty as he said it. “I’m sorry, Johnnycake. We’re just...not sure howta deal with this. We don’t know how.”

Johnny took a sharp breath, surprising himself as a lump formed in his throat and tears pricked at his eyes and his inhale sounded like a shuddering gasp as he said, “Soda, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry about, Pony, man. I shoulda done somethin’. I shoulda stopped it.”

And then he was sobbing, unable to stop, unable to make his eyes dry again.

He hated crying in front of people. Even Dallas, who he cried in front of most often, he hated crying in front of. He hated feeling like a burden. Especially now when he really shouldn’t have been the one so damaged and broken by the death of someone who wasn’t even his brother.

It should’ve been Soda and Darry in his position. Not him.

That was why he thought he was selfish. That was why he thought his therapist was wrong.

 _But doesn’t this prove she’s right?_ A tiny voice whispered at the back of his mind. _Selfish people don’t worry about whether or not they’re being selfish._

Soda leaned forwards again and placed a tentative hand on Johnny’s knee.

Johnny opened his eyes and looked up at Soda.

There was a brokenness in his eyes that Johnny had never seen before. And then he realized that the smile Soda always wore was just a mask. It was just a mask to keep everyone from worrying, his own brand of selflessness, his own brand of thinking of everyone before himself. It was all a lie and it hurt him to keep up that lie, but he did it because the truth was too much for even him to bear.

“Johnny,” Soda said in a voice that sounded as broken as his expression. “It wasn’t your fault. Okay? We know that. We all know that. I know that. Darry knows that. And, wherever Pony is, I’m sure he knows that too. The Socs got away with cause they’re Socs and they did it for the same reasons they beat you so bad: cause they could. It _wasn’t your fault_. I promise. I swear on my folks’ grave.”

Johnny nodded, but he wasn’t sure he believed it. Especially not with what Ponyboy told him during just about every hallucination he had before he’d entered the hospital. They hallucinations didn’t talk to him anymore, but that didn’t mean they didn’t still feel the same way.

“Is-is Dallas alright?” he finally asked in a soft voice, looking shyly up at Soda.

Soda nodded. “Yeah, he’s alright. Worried as all hell about you, but he’s alright.”

Johnny nodded again. “Good. Please...please tell him I’m sorry...for what happened.”

Soda gave a small smile. “He don’t blame ya for either, kid. Don’t ya get it? We all love ya, Johnnycake. We ain’t like your folks. We don’t blame ya for things that ain’t your fault.”

Johnny swallowed hard, his eyes back on the linoleum floor. He still wasn’t sure he believed him, but it was nice to hear all the same.

It was only a moment later that the orderly opened the door again, telling Soda that his time was up and Soda got up slowly, clearly reluctant to leave.

“You just focus on yourself, okay, Johnnycake? We’ll be here waitin’ for ya when ya get better, I promise,” he said. He gave a tight-lipped smile that seemed more worried than reassuring, but Johnny accepted it. He knew now the reason behind it and he gave a smile of his own.

Soda left then, but, despite the way their conversation ended, he felt reassured, comforted.

Maybe Soda was right. Maybe this wasn’t his fault.

Maybe he could get better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> three more chapters and this fic is done!! woo!! i've rly been enjoyin' writin' it despite the unnecessary stress involved. my next fic of this nature is gonna be a silent voice!!


	20. Death by Self Infliction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny learns something when Dally visits him and has another very different vision of Ponyboy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow it has been a hot minute since i wrote for this fanfic (or any really); i've been goin' through a lot and i've been readin' and i can only focus on one thing at a time, so yeah pls forgive me ;-; i'll do my best to get the next chapter up more quickly

Johnny was no longer sure how long he had been in the hospital. He was still mostly confined to his room by his own choice and at the recommendation of his assigned therapist. He took his meals there, and only sometimes left the room occasionally for group therapy – when he felt up to it – or for one-on-one sessions with his therapist in her office. He’d tried going to one of the craft groups, but that had ended in him screaming and nearly attacking another patient who touched him, which ended any desire he had to go to any of the enrichment activities offered during downtime at the hospital.

So the days passed slowly, him staying in his room most of the time reading whatever books his therapist brought him from the large bookshelf in the day room, him only knowing the day was ending when a nurse would come in to give him his meds and warn him lights out was in a thirty minutes only to wake him eight hours later with more meds and breakfast.

He still tried to eat as little as possible, but it didn’t take very long for the hospital orderlies to notice. Now he was woken up, given a menu, and had to choose something while an orderly watched him do it. Then he had to eat in front of them too. If he didn’t, they warned him they’d put him on a feeding tube and he didn’t want that. He suspected that it would be unpleasant, but he still heard nasty voices whisper in his head every time he put a forkful of food into his mouth. Even when he drank as much water as he could in between. Even when he chewed for as long as possible to avoid swallowing.

He knew they were only trying to help him, trying to get him back to his version of normal – or as close to it as possible – in the hopes they could release him soon, but he still, in many way, felt like a prisoner. Not so much because he was trapped in his room all day – that was his own choice – but because he was being forced into a recovery he hadn’t chosen himself.

 _You don’t deserve to recover,_ voices whispered in his head constantly.

He no longer knew if the voices were still Ponyboy’s or his own. He’d lost the ability to tell the difference between the two. He’d told his therapist this once. She’d asked him what Ponyboy had sounded like. He told her he couldn’t remember anymore.

Which only made everything worse.

He was already forgetting him.

It had to have been almost three weeks since he’d been admitted to the hospital when Dally visited him for the first time, stepping into his room carefully, giving the orderly who lingered in the doorway a dirty look.

“I’m not gonna kill him,” Dally said shortly.

The orderly closed the door, muttering, “I’ll get you in an hour.”

Johnny was surprised. An hour was a long time for a visit.

“Hey Johnnycake,” Dally said quietly, giving a small smile that didn’t reach his eyes once the door had closed, the lock clicking into place shortly after. “I’m sorry I didn’t visit before now. They wouldn’t let me. I tried everyday, man. I promise.”

“It’s okay, Dal,” Johnny replied quietly, hugging himself. “I believe you.”

Dally looked nervous, something unusual for him. Johnny almost felt like he was looking at a completely different person sitting in front of him. Distantly, he remembered Dally’s aversion to hospitals. It must have taken a lot for him to come here. Especially every day. Even if he was just turned away at the door. It must have taken even more for him to be sitting here now.

How much did it remind him of his mother? Probably too much.

Johnny swallowed hard. “So,” he asked quietly, his fingers curling in the arms of the sweater he was wearing in an attempt to hide their shaking, “how-how are...things?”

“Fine,” Dally replied. “We all really miss ya, man.”

Johnny nodded, replying with genuinely, “I miss y’all too. I can’t wait to leave.”

“Did ya hear?” Dally asked suddenly, his eyes lighting up slightly as he said it. “Bob killed himself. Was found dead in his room. Hanged himself. He left a note and apparently he did it cause of what he did to Ponyboy. Said he felt guilty. I don’t believe it for a second. That bastard just wanted the easy way out. He didn’t want to face the consequences of what he’d done. The cops were finally gettin’ onto him. They started interviewin’ us and everythin’. And then the bastard killed himself.”

Johnny froze when he heard this, the most of the rest of what he said not registering.

Bob was dead? Because of what he did to Pony?

A part of him agreed with Dally that it was unlikely he did it out of true remorse, but another part of him felt an intense guilt almost akin to that he felt about Ponyboy’s death.

 _That’s two deaths you’ve caused now,_ a voice whispered. _If you had protected Ponyboy, then Bob wouldn’t’ve killed him and if Bob hadn’t killed him he wouldn’t’ve killed himself. This is all your fault. Your fault. And you know it better than anyone._

Dally talked about a few more things, things Johnny took in just enough to give short one word answers. Too soon it seemed their hour was up and the orderly was returning, telling Dally he could visit again in a week if he wanted. Dally said he would. He told Johnny he loved him and waved goodbye. Johnny waved back numbly. Johnny wasn’t sure Dally noticed his distress. Or if he did, he didn’t mention it. Johnny couldn’t blame him for not mentioning it. He was still afraid of what would happen if he did. He was still afraid Johnny would fall all apart. If he were completely honest with himself, Johnny was afraid that’s what would happen too.

The door clicked shut behind Dally and the lock slid into place.

Johnny put his head in his hands, his fingers curling in the ends of his bangs that had grown far too long, his entire body shuddering.

Bob was dead.

Bob was dead.

And it was his fault.

Just like Ponyboy’s death was his fault.

He wanted to scream. He only just barely managed to have the forethought to grab a pillow, pressing it into his face, before he screamed so loud and long his throat was raw and his voice was hoarse by the time he finished.

Johnny pulled the pillow away from his face and collapsed on the bed. He stayed that way until he was given his meds and the room went dark and it was time to sleep.

But he didn’t sleep. He lay there awake, staring into the darkness, thinking about everything, the night of Ponyboy’s death going through his mind over and over again so many times that he finally felt he wasn’t in the hospital at all, he was standing in the park again, the cool early fall air blowing around him. Ponyboy was there. He turned to him and, to his shock, Ponyboy was smiling.

This vision of him was so much more pleasant than any he had seen so far that he found himself speechless, just waiting for the angry version to return.

But he didn’t.

“You came!” Ponyboy said, sounding genuinely happy. He wrapped his arms around Johnny in a hug that he swore he could feel, even if he did know it was a hallucination. “Even though you’re about to break! That’s a good sign!”

Johnny couldn’t hug him back. He was still too surprised to do anything except stand there, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

“So,” Ponyboy went on, pulling back, “why did you come?”

For several long moments, Johnny didn’t know what to say. He still wasn’t really sure what was even going on. Then he swallowed hard, licked his lips and said, “I think...I wanna be forgiven.” He nodded his head once, feeling the rightness and sureness of that statement. “More than...anything.”

Ponyboy, still smiling, tilted his head to once side and asked, “By who?”

Johnny’s eyes snapped open. It was still dark out.

He’d been dreaming.

He sat up in bed, looking around the room, searching for Ponyboy, wanting to ask him what he’d meant by that last question, even though he was pretty sure he knew already.

_By who?_

Who did he want to be forgiven by?

 _You, obviously,_ he wanted to reply, but was that the truth? It seemed that maybe, just maybe, Ponyboy had already forgiven him. And Soda and Darry had too.

So who was left?

 _You,_ a voice whispered back. _You have to forgive yourself._

Johnny swallowed, the words echoing in his mind over and over again.

_You have to forgive yourself._

There was only one problem.

He didn’t know if he could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i keep sayin' this, but yeah this fanfic is almost over!! also the part with ponyboy at the park is stolen from final fantasy vii: advent children. if you've seen that, you know the exact scene i'm talkin' about.


End file.
